“The inability to have that sort of symbiotic connection between the gold sales on the radio affiliates really hurt their connectedness,” Mr. One of his lawyers estimated that the conspiracy theorist generated $56 million in revenue last year. Jones has his own business hawking Infowars-branded supplements, as well as products such as Infowars masks alongside bumper stickers declaring Covid-19 to be a hoax. The founder of the supplement company has a show syndicated by Genesis and has also appeared on Mr. Now, the Midas website redirects to a multilevel marketing company selling the same supplements that populate Genesis’ online shop. Anderson as “incompetent” and ordered the company to pay restitution to customers after having “regularly misappropriated money.” Anderson continued to dim after 2015, when the Minnesota Commerce Department shut down Midas.
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One program promoted lessons on how to “store food, learn the importance of precious metals, or even survive a gunfight.” Jason Lewis, a Republican politician in Minnesota who faced blowback during the 2018 election season after his misogynistic on-air remarks resurfaced, had a syndication deal with Genesis and a campaign office at Genesis’ address. There was a Christian rocker who opposed gay rights and a politician who embraced unfounded theories about crisis actors and President Obama’s nationality. Several shows were headed by firearms aficionados. Joy Browne a home improvement expert known as the “Cajun Contractor” and a group of self-described “normal guys with normal views” talking about sports.īut eventually, the network developed a reputation for a certain type of programming, promoting its “conspiracy” content on its website and telling the MinnPost in 2011 that its advertisers “specialize in preparedness and survival.” the Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin the long-running call-in psychologist Dr. Genesis’s roster has also included a gay comedian a former lawyer for the A.C.L.U. Anderson more than 20 times in 30 seconds to yell “racist.” Jones would interrupt the pitches with rants, like the time in 2013 when he cut off Mr. Anderson, bespectacled and generally mild, to deliver extended pitches for safe haven metals like gold.
Jones, pugnacious and prone to pontificating, broadcasting dire claims about the dollar’s inevitable demise before introducing Mr.
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“It’s a little world full of networks of people who find ways to help each other out.”Īrchived footage shows Mr. “Misinformation exists for ideological reasons, but there is always a link to very commercial interests - they always find each other,” said Hilde Van den Bulck, a Drexel University media professor who has studied Mr. Jones, but also for the companies that host websites, serve ads or syndicate content in the background. Misinformation can also be hugely profitable, not just for the boldface names like Mr. The proliferation of falsehoods and misleading content, especially heading into the midterm elections this fall, is often blamed on credulous audiences and a widening partisan divide. But the cases, soon headed before juries to determine damages, continue to shed light on the economics that help to drive misleading and false claims across the media landscape. The move freed Genesis, which says on its website that it “has established itself as the largest independently owned and operated talk radio network in the country,” from the steep penalties that most likely await Mr.
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Christopher Mattei, one of the lawyers, said in a statement that having Genesis involved at trial would have distracted from the main target: Mr. Last month, the plaintiffs’ lawyers dropped Genesis as a defendant. Jones was found liable by default in those cases.