Well, it's almost a holiday season. This is one of my favorite parts of a year getting together with family

exchanging gifts with loved ones. And if you want to enjoy the holidays to the fullest, you'll need to get your best night

sleep every night. And that's easier than it sounds. Bring home a better night sleep this holiday season with

Boland Branch bedding for a limited time. Get 20% off your first set of sheets and free shipping when you use promo code

Bol work at BolandBranch.com. That's Boland Branch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com from OCODE Bol work.

Welcome to the Bol work podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It has been only a few weeks since a jury in Connecticut.

Awarded the families of eight Sandy Hook shooting victims nearly one billion dollars in damages from info wars fabulous Alex Jones.

The verdict described in the New York Times as a devastating blow against his empire and a message from the jury that is lies in those of his followers have crippling consequences.

The reporter who wrote that the author of the book Sandy Hook an American tragedy in the battle for truth Elizabeth Williamson joins me on the podcast today. Good afternoon Liz.

Hey Charlie how you doing? Well this is a this is a difficult issue because right before we started I said this seems very timely to be discussing this flood of disinformation and the empire of lies at this particular moment when it all seems to be so much worse and which the floodgates of

propaganda and lies you know continues to accelerate but as you point out it's really there's never been a time when it's not timely I mean we are living in Alex Jones's world in so many ways aren't we?

Yeah it's really true I mean over the last decade you know as I say in the book Sandy Hook turned out to be a foundational story in the spread of disinformation and you know false narratives.

And you know we've seen that happen it was unusual at the time of the shooting a decade ago but since then you know now 20% of all Americans believe that every high profile mass shooting is staged by the government.

Really I've never heard that statistic before. Yes it was interesting because I put that into the story that you just cited about the the $965 million

judgment against Alex Jones and Connecticut and an editor said oh I need to you know look for citation or hyperlink for that and found three different studies that for that out.

Well again as you described it that mass shooting the death of all those children back in 2012 in Newtown was a foundational moment in the world of misinformation and disinformation that we now live in.

And you know we look back on this and the jury verdict and I guess the real mystery is why that didn't discredit the world of conspiracy theorists why there was not so much revulsion against the attack against the parents of dead children.

And why that didn't discredit the whole enterprise and even after this massive jury verdict things seem to be getting worse I know you thought about that.

You know why is there not been this just repulsion against the falsehood and just the viciousness of it all yeah I have thought about that a lot you're right and you want and it just you know as evidence that this not only.

Doesn't dissuade people from embracing this theory it actually encourages them I mean Alex Jones's sales and and outright donations to info wars have been surging since these jury verdicts you know an earlier.

One this summer in Texas and now this giant one in Connecticut and I really think you know look for the reasons for this we have to go beyond the content and really look at what these theories symbolize for people that this is a form you know another iteration of the tribalism that we're experiencing on the right and left in this country that people are willing to embrace this theory as a kind of tribal signifier that if you say.

You know hey a lot of these mass shootings are false flags you know they're staged by the government as a pretext for gun control you're sort of showing your bonafides to be a member in this case of the far right.

...