The supplements, according to multiple former Infowars employees, completely transformed Jones’ burgeoning operation into a media empire. According to one former employee, Jones bragged that the Infowars store grossed $18 million between 2012 and 2013. Another source puts that number closer to $10 million — and this was before the popularity Jones and Infowars enjoy today. Part of the success of the store came from Jones’ ruthless deal-making. “I watched him on the phone with some poor author who’d written a book Jones wanted to buy, and Alex would negotiate him down until he's making no money,” Jack Blood, a former radio colleague, said.
Two former employees alleged that Jones would instruct staff to find products that were failing and convince them to whittle their margins to almost nothing in exchange for the Infowars endorsement. “Alex’s business model was to ensnare these companies at a low rate, and lock in exclusivity,” the former staffer said, noting that attaching the Infowars brand to a product often destroyed a seller’s future prospects to go mainstream. “I’ve seen him undercut a company that sells survival straws for $25, force them down to $10, and sell them at $50,” another former employee claimed.
For some employees, the shift from what they saw as crusader journalism to content marketing for colloidal silver was jarring. “It became a moral issue for me,” one said. “It’s why I don’t work there anymore.”
And then there were the Infowars’ “money bomb” telethons — marathon events to raise money for the for-profit institution. Three former employees told BuzzFeed News that a money bomb could easily raise $100,000 in a day. “People were just so taken by the information we’d been pushing they’d do anything,” an employee said. “It made me sick to my stomach,” another said, recalling a donor who charged a donation to her credit card because her house had been foreclosed. “I'm convinced after working there that fear sells as well as sex. Judging by his profits, maybe it sells even better.”
Four former staffers suggested that this influx of money inspired the greatest change in Jones’ demeanor, and in Infowars’ strategy. “It’s become less about effecting change and more about being sensational and making money,” one ex-employee explained. “It didn’t start out that way. He was a lovely person to hang around for a long time, but soon that evaporated.”
[source : Alex Jones Will Never Stop Being Alex Jones, Buzzfeed, https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/alex-jones-will-never-stop-being-alex-jones?utm_term=.abgpQXnQeO#.fqbWVjQVvx, 4th May 2017]
John Oliver recently had a go at Jones' products, and this guy Dr Edward Group III.
Oliver said that about two-thirds of funding for Jones’s show comes from selling the products and that Jones often tells listeners that he can barely keep the show going unless they buy the products on his site. Jones told NBC’s Megan Kelly during an interview last month that it costs $45 million to $50 million to run InfoWars.
“Jones would have you believe every penny they earn is being plowed back into a show that looks like it’s being filmed on a low-budget porn parody of itself,” Oliver said, adding that Jones owns multiple Rolex watches.
Oliver also pointed out that the medical expert Jones often brings onto the show to help market the products, Dr. Edward Group III, claims to have a degree from MIT but actually attended Texas Chiropractic College.
“This man does not look like a MIT alumnus, he looks like a fifth-year senior at the university of falling off a surfboard,” Oliver joked.
[source : John Oliver takes on Alex Jones over Infowars product ads, The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/344572-john-oliver-takes-on-infowars-products, 31st July 2017]
But why is Alex, and Infowars as a whole, so concerned about your health that they want you to buy all these 'health' products and make Infowars rich, while they say nothing, absolutely nothing, about the health of the millions of children in Yemen who face homelessness, malnutrition, dehydration and now cholera? And not forgetting Gaza, which will become uninhabitable in a few years time, if not so already.
Why do Infowars, like the rest of the mainstream media, not attack Trump for his support for that "cancer on the world", as Watson describes Saudi Arabia, as the Saudis create a humanitarian crisis in Yemen affecting 20 million men, women and children, and now Save the Children say that 1 million children could die from cholera:
More than a million children already suffering from acute malnutrition are at risk from a cholera outbreak sweeping war-torn Yemen, charity Save the Children warned Wednesday.
The charity said it was sending more health experts to the worst-affected areas as it tries to ease the crisis. A ravaged health care system, devastated infrastructure and near famine -- the results of a bloody civil war that began in March 2015 -- have all contributed to the spread of the disease.
Data analysis shows more than a million acutely malnourished children under the age of 5 -- almost 200,000 of them with severe acute malnutrition -- are living in areas with high levels of infection, Save the Children said.
Malnourished children are at least three times more likely to die if they contract cholera because of their reduced immune systems, the charity said.
[source : Yemen: Million children at risk from cholera, charity says, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/02/middleeast/yemen-cholera/index.html, 2nd August 2017]
I wonder if Trump will call this "fake news"?
But I've just had an idea : perhaps Jones could give some of his products away free to the children of Yemen?
Or would that embarass Trump too much?
Of perhaps Trump and Jones could charter a plane or two to deliver cold bottles of Trump Ice Water and some Infowars products to cleanse their colons or something?
Multi-billionaire Trump and multi-millionaire Jones, delivering water and nutrition to children in Yemen. Now that would be a great publicity stunt.
Or would it not just be easier to force Trump to get the Saudis to stop the genocide by exposing his CIA/Roy Cohn/paedophile/mob/money-laundering links?
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