At What Cost?

On the Media

WNYC Studios

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A jury recently ordered Alex Jones to pay nearly one billion dollars to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. On this week’s On the Media, a former Alex Jones staffer struggles with the damage his participation wrought. Plus, does social media really turn nice people into trolls?

1. Elizabeth Williamson [@NYTLiz], features writer for The New York Times, on the Sandy Hook defamation trials against Alex Jones and what the trials taught us about the spread of misinformation. Listen.

2. Josh Owens [@JoshuaHOwens ], a former InfoWars employee, on what can be done to help people who have become consumed by conspiracy theories. Listen.

3. Michael Bang Petersen [@M_B_Petersen], political science professor at Aarhus University, on the difference (or lack thereof) between on and offline behaviors, and how social media might not be affecting us in the ways we think. Listen.

Music:

The Artifact and Living by Michael AndrewsCellar Door by Michael AndrewsBoy Moves the Sun by Michael AndrewsExit Music (For A Film) by Brad Mehldau TrioEye Surgery by Thomas NewmanHammer of Los by John Zorn

Transcript

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0:00.0	Alex Jones was ordered to pay nearly a billion dollars in damages for the extraordinary lies.
0:05.5	He spread about the Sandy Hook massacre.
0:07.6	Ain't gotta be happening, ain't no money.
0:09.8	The conspiracist finally gets his comeuppance, but is the damage beyond her pain.
0:15.1	Nearly a fifth of all Americans believe that every high-profile mass shooting is faked usually by the government.
0:23.6	From WNYC in New York, this is on the media, I'm Brooke Gladstone.
0:27.8	Also this week, a former Alex Jones cameraman reflects.
0:32.2	I'm not here to say that Jones is responsible for the things that I did because ultimately,
0:36.6	that responsibility falls on me.
0:38.6	Plus, is social media to blame for turning nice folks into trolls?
0:43.4	The data says nope.
0:45.1	We did not find this huge group of people who report to be nice in face-to-face discussions,
0:51.7	but hostile online.
0:54.0	Coming up after this.
0:58.4	From WNYC in New York, this is on the media, I'm Brooke Gladstone.
1:06.0	On Thursday, what could be the last public congressional hearing on January 6th aired
1:11.5	and streamed across the country?
1:14.0	Its crescendo was preceded by a montage of the silent.
1:19.0	More than 30 witnesses in our investigation have invoked their fifth amendment right against self-imprimination,
1:25.2	and several of those did so specifically in response to questions about their dealings with Donald Trump.
1:31.8	This is Roger Stone.
1:33.4	I will assert my fifth amendment right to respectfully decline to answer your question.
	...

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