In this installment, Dan and Jordan discuss a recent deposition that Owen Shroyer had to appear for after he misidentified the shooter in the 2023 Allen outlet mall shooting. No gummi worms this time, but Owen is still a puppet.
But to be in full life, life-sized Donkey Kong country, it just feels like it would be like, your childhood self would never forgive you for not going.
I do think that part of the joy of the deposition is, like, we have taken these people from an arena where they are the masters, you know, the masters of lies, the circus tent people, and we've put them in a cage where they can't spread their wings, you know?
So first, I was listening to the show during a flight when we hit heavy turbulence, and for a fleeting moment, I thought the last thing I'd hear in the world would be Alex Jones arguing with Chad GPT.
And so this one, I'll give you a little bit of a refresher on what happened.
On May 6th, 2023, there was a mass shooting at a mall in Allen, Texas, leading to the deaths of eight people plus the shooter.
In the time immediately after the shooting, information started to come out about the identity of the shooter, namely that he was someone who had an online footprint full of Nazi tattoos and racist right-wing writing.
There were indications that he had reposted content from Tim Pool and libs of TikTok and endorsed Nick Fuentes and V-Dare.
This posed an optics problem for these people, since carrying out a racially motivated mass shooting is kind of the logical conclusion of a lot of their content.
It's not good for business when someone carries out the domestic terrorism you're trying to incite, so when this happens, Alex and the people in his orbit will always call it a false flag.
So that's what they did.
As pictures started to circulate of the shooter's online history and Nazi tattoos, it became important to undermine that narrative so it didn't take hold.
Nazis aren't supposed to be a real thing or problem, according to Nazi apologists.
So a guy with, like, SS tattoos killing eight people in a racially motivated attack, that's not good for business.
That can't exist.
The angle that many of these right-wing media figures decided to take was to Google the alleged shooter's name, at which point they found another person with the same name who didn't have Nazi tattoos.
The story started to become that this second person they'd found was the real shooter, and that the guy with Nazi tattoos was just another guy, and that the media was trying to say that he was the shooter so they could make the story about a Nazi to make Trump people look bad.
It was important to invalidate the story that this guy was a Nazi extremist because he has the risk of making normal people associate Nazi extremist murderers with their content model.
And once the larger population starts taking that seriously, the money train might end up slowing down or stopping.
And that leads us to the next day on Owen's show where he showed the pictures of the wrong person, identifying them as the Alan Maul shooter in order to deflect from stories that the actual shooter was a Nazi dude who liked Tim Pool.
And so that's where Owen gets on air on that Sunday and misidentifies this person.
It's pretty, you know, honestly in terms of like what happened, it's a pretty clear cut.
It is interesting because when you listen to it now as compared to the last one that we listened to, I feel like Owen has learned some of the language better.
Of the deposition language kind of thing.
But not in a way of understanding the language, more like in a way of, if I make the same sounds back at them, then they'll think that I'm, you know what I mean?
You know, it's not like he doesn't understand the meaning of the word pertains, or that kind of thing.
But he knows that this is the type of word you use here.
So, just in the opening minutes of this thing, we have Owen refusing to accept the risk of calling himself a journalist, even though his documents identify him as one, and saying that...
Everything he puts on his show is under his control.
Alex doesn't tell him what to say.
He directs his own ship.
And so he is a man who is presumably responsible for the content that he puts out.
So this is a tough spot for Owen to be in this early.
He obviously can't answer in either direction here without taking on really shitty conclusions.
If he claims that he reviews all the material that's on the desk, which is the fodder for the show he does, then he would need to own that he bears some responsibility for not fact-checking the picture that was reported on identifying the wrong shooter.
In this scenario, he's able to maintain the facade that he's doing a real show that's not just ranting about social media posts he's skimmed, but he also has to accept that he made a mistake here.
Conversely, if he claims that he doesn't look at all the prop paper on the desk and has no idea what any of it is then maybe he feels like he can get away with reporting on this incorrect image but it comes at the expense of admitting that his show is really just ranting about social media posts that he barely knows what they are.
Take yourself seriously and admit you fucked up or take no responsibility by essentially admitting that your whole game is a fraud.
It's quite a pickle that he's accidentally landed himself in and I don't think...
When he was saying, I don't know this material, it's just in front of me, I can't have any responsibility for it, I don't think he was expecting Mark to reply with, so it's Russian roulette if you defame somebody, based on what is just randomly in front of you.
So this turns into a situation where Mark is asking, so when you have stuff that you don't know if it's true or not in front of you, That's not an ideal source, right?
Right, so when you have a show and part of the basis of your show is to review live materials printed out from the internet that you've never seen, that ain't a great idea.
I love the dynamic that we have always with all of these depositions, which is you ask a question, and then they have some sort of response that's like, obviously I can't do that, idiot!
Well, maybe this speaks to, like, a bureaucracy that's in place, that they need to go through three different offices and get Signatures to take anything on or off the desk.
Maybe they're so opposed to government red tape because they have this insane Byzantine system they have to go through.
And also, your explanation that it seems like it's supposed to be such common sense that, like, I have no idea what papers are going to be on the desk when I get...
It opens up like, uh, it's not a satisfying excuse.
So I thought at this point it might be good to actually hear some of the episode that got Owen in trouble because it helps to put into context why he did the things that he did.
Understood as it actually happened, Owen was part of a media ecosystem that was desperate to deny that the Alan shooter was a guy with Nazi tattoos who was motivated by the same ideology that underlies their worldview.
One of the headlines, particularly on social media after the shooting, was that the guy had Nazi tattoos and Owen felt self-conscious about this.
The right-wing dipshit media reacted in lockstep with each other, desperately pushing other explanations for the shooting that didn't touch on the possibility that white supremacy is a real thing.
Here was the rant that Owen was in the middle of when he misidentified the shooter, which we'll hear in this clip.
So as Owen is discussing the shooter, they go to an overhead shot of the papers on the desk showing a prominently displayed mugshot of the plaintiff in this lawsuit who was not the shooter.
Owen's defense here seems to be that he can't control what papers are in front of him, and this is a random coincidence, but previously on this show, he could clearly be seen looking through the papers on the desk and weaving their content into his monologue.
In the context of the show that's being presented, these aren't just random papers, they're his sources, and the incorrect mugshot is placed directly where the overhead cam is because Owen shuffled the papers around and put it there in order for the camera to pick it up.
He can dodge responsibility in a lot of ways and try to maintain his pretend credibility, but there's just no way around it if you watch the video.
He engaged with the papers on the desk, treating them as prepared news even though they were just printed off tweets, and he presented the mugshot by putting it in front of the overhead camera.
In terms of his organization of what would be in view of the camera...
Owen arguably was operating as a producer, putting the prop into the place it needed to be in order to be in the shot.
So he's actually, I think he's getting off easy based on what he's being accused of here.
Also, Thurgood Marshall was the first black member of the Supreme Court who Clarence Thomas actually replaced, but I wouldn't expect someone like Owen, who has such a great grasp on all these issues, to know that.
So this is an interesting deflection that Owen is trying to make because on some level, I think he feels like he just pulled like a logic judo move.
Mark has established that Owen knows that there will be material on the desk that he's possibly never seen before, and has also established that Owen has control over what he says on the ship.
The natural conclusion for this is that he has control over the response that he gives to random, unverified information, which is to say that he made a choice and it led to this defamatory content being broadcast.
Owen thinks he can get out of this corner by saying that he's under no obligation to respond to the random papers on his desk as a general rule.
He could ignore them entirely and not get into any trouble with Alex or the bosses.
What he's trying to do is retain some measure of dignity by creating the impression that some days his show is fully prepared by him before the show and has nothing to do with the litter that Alex just left on the desk.
But the problem is in this specific case that they're talking about, Owen did rely on those papers.
The idea that he has the freedom to ignore them only makes him more responsible for his actions.
This is the kind of thing you see when someone is sort of trained to argue.
He knows what it looks like and feels like to make a point, but he doesn't really know how to assess if the point that he's making is good.
He just knows that he's now said something that kind of feels like it covers the bases, but more importantly, it puts the ball back in the other person's court.
Nine times out of ten, when Owen is arguing with random people on the street, this level of explanation will fly, but in a deposition, you can...
Well, Ed, it's so weird because, like, I don't think that anybody would not accept an apology and a recognition of, like, you did wrong here.
Like, I feel like...
This is the easiest bind for Owen to get out of by just saying, we fucked up, made a mistake.
The fact that they have to go through these, like, I had nothing to do with the papers, and all this, is only because of the inability to admit wrongdoing.
So this seems like it would be a good dodge, but it relies on the person talking to Owen, not knowing anything and having not prepared.
If you watch the show that this suit is based on prior to this point, Owen has literally been handling the papers on the desk, reorganizing them, looking through them for things to talk.
I think what he wants to say is that this show isn't...
Just him randomly riffing off paper that Alex left on the desk.
And that's fine if he wants to say that to preserve his ego.
But the problem is, in this specific case in question, there's video of him using the papers on the desk for the basis of his show.
In this instance, him trying to use this as a defense just looks silly.
It makes it too obvious that the reason he's being defensive about this is because if he doesn't, he'd kind of have to admit that there really isn't anything more behind his show.
The illusion of the show is predicated on needing to pretend that they're taking this seriously.
It would be a lot harder to sell the audience on the idea that you're fighting the literal devil if they knew that all you're really doing is a racist meme recap show.
And I think that protecting that kayfabe is more important to Owen than not looking like...
I don't know, but I think that the people that Owen is probably used to talking to, he could say, I never touched those papers, and they would be like, I guess if he said he never touched the papers, maybe he didn't.
But if you're dealing with lawyers who are suing you over this, they watched your episode.
And I think at some point, Owen has to recognize, based on how little confrontation is coming, that this is kind of not an information-gathering exercise, and more a, like, aren't-your-answers-embarrassing kind of, like, exercise.
The policy says any news story published or promoted by InfoWars that deals with the possibility of a crime being committed or criminal accusations in general must be checked by multiple editors before publication, whether it be a video report or a written article.
This also includes headlines as well as the content of the report.
This policy will help ensure that reports are free of inaccurate and misleading statements that invite legal problems for the company.
You agree that this policy existed before the show that we're here to talk about today?
Yes.
Has anyone ever said to you since 2018, Mr. Schroyer, this policy is no longer in effect?
Criminal allegations that you make on your show don't need to be checked by multiple editors?
See, this is a bad situation for Owen to be in, because obviously he remembers this stuff, and he's answering no, because if he answers yes, then he's going to be asked, what happened there?
And Owen doesn't want to have to say it himself.
So he thinks he's avoiding something by being like, I...
Do you remember in May 2022, a year before this episode we're talking about, that you published the photo of an innocent woman saying that she was the Uvalde Elementary School shooter?
Mr. Schreier, I've handed you what's been marked as Exhibit 2. This is a CNN article that was published on KTVZ Oregon.
The title of this article is False Right Conspiracists Claim the Uvalde Shooter Was a Trans Woman, and I'd like to direct your attention to the highlighted portion on page two.
Okay, I'm going to read that portion really quick, and you can read along with me.
It says, Jones told the caller he had a photo of Ramos wearing a skirt.
Later in the episode, he shared a tweet from Andy Ngo that asked people to stop claiming that the images of people in skirts being circulated are Ramos.
Because none of those images had been confirmed to be the shooter.
Jones co-host Owen Schroyer said, I just want to be clear, the images we've been talking about are not the ones that we've been sharing.
We've been sharing the images that are on his Instagram account that is claimed to be his.
The Instagram account that Schroyer mentioned was a spoof account that has since been taken down.
Does this refresh your memory that in 2022 you spread the false image of a mass shooter?
So we've, I don't know, illustrated a pattern of you personally and you Infowars as a company doing this pretty regularly to the detriment of people's lives.
Owen is acting like this because the legal strategy is basically to just be really defensive and see if anything sticks.
The I-have-no-idea-where-the-paper-comes-from defense clearly isn't enough, and so now he's just trying to justify his actions by saying, all the cool kids were reporting on this, so it wasn't just me.
This is a great moment that illustrates a dynamic of InfoWars that really cuts through their facade.
They're supposed to be the tip of the spear, the only ones who truly see through the media manipulation.
They're the independent thinkers, and their analysis is better than everyone else because they're inspired by God.
This is their kayfabe persona.
But when they do something wrong and want to get out of trouble, all of a sudden they're just part of the crowd.
All these other places were spreading this fake information, so why are we the ones who are getting in trouble for it?
And this really demonstrates an underlying immaturity that these folks operate with.
There's not much difference, honestly, between Owen and a high school bully other than that Owen wears a suit.
And so that's what Mark is getting at there, is like, you would know that this person was there.
I don't know what I knew.
So Owen has to get defensive about being asked about using anonymous tweets as a source because on some level, he knows that there isn't much more to his show than that.
This person, Kenkoa the Great, is a QAnon weirdo who interacts with Elon Musk a bunch, which raised their profile in the dipshit media space.
So, Owen...
Covers them a bit.
Yeah.
Owen already used a different printed out tweet from this same account earlier in the show, which was just a racist meme about crime statistics.
So the B-roll that's playing while Owen discusses the tattoo on the shooter's hand is of the shooter dead on the ground.
Owen knows the shooter was killed when he's on air.
He just knows that if he admits that, it makes it all the more egregious that he didn't realize the mugshot he was presenting was the wrong person.
He didn't care that it was the wrong person because he was just trying to find a counter-narrative to the idea that the actual shooter was a racist Nazi because that's critical to their business model staying respectable.
Understood in the larger context, Owen thinks that he's giving defensive, evasive answers to these questions, but it seems like he doesn't realize how much more damning what he's saying is than just, I made a big mistake and I'm really sorry about how careless we were that day.
That would be so much more acceptable than what he's trying to...
You would agree that before you discuss a photo on your show, allegedly showing a mass murderer, You need to ensure that reasonable steps were taken to verify its accuracy.
Right, and you have the ability, if you want, to give instructions to the members of your staff about what materials should be on your desk, don't you?
So in other words, whether you might, you know you're getting on a show to talk to a bunch of people, and whether you might end up saying something proper or improper is dependent on the materials that were left on the desk by Alex Jones.
During a breaking news event, you should only discuss to your audience and publish to your audience the image of an alleged mass murder if the image was confirmed using a primary source.
During a breaking news event, you should only discuss or publish an image of a mass alleged shooter If the image was confirmed using a primary source, do you agree with that?
I'm asking you about the standard of care in your industry.
Do you think your standard of care, talking to your audience, is any different than a random, anonymous person on Twitter who's not a commercial media person?
It contains something that I think is quintessential about people like Owen.
and if you can see it, you can never really look at them as a respectable person again.
He's very clearly being led down a path where he has no choice but to admit that he put in no effort into verifying this mugshot, and in the process, the plaintiff was misidentified as a mass murderer to Owen's audience.
And at this point in the deposition, Mark has identified at least one other incident where Owen did the exact same thing, in the case of Uvalde, and another incident where using unverified stories on air led to him defaming Sandy Hook patriarchs.
This is a very clear and well-illustrated pattern of behavior connecting Owen's actions to their effects.
Owen can understand words, so he knows that he's in a real bind here, which leads to him Yeah.
Owen thinks this is a dunk and it's going to lead to him gaining the upper hand in the conversation.
But he seems to have no idea that this only leads to a more damning follow-up question.
Owen has no conception that saying these random Twitter accounts don't get sued could possibly lead to, do you think you have more journalistic duties than a random Twitter account?
Owen thought he was going to evade this line of questioning entirely and point the finger at someone else, but instead, he ended up tripping over his own feet, and now he has to answer a yes or no question.
About whether he's more legitimate than a random Twitter account.
If he says yes, he's accepting the premise that he fucked up with this mugshot.
If he says no, then he's accepting that his work is meaningless and you shouldn't take anything more from it than a tweet.
That's how serious this is or real any other shit is.
It's a fucking fake pictured Twitter account.
It's a tough spot he's landed in.
And you can tell that he doesn't want to accept either of these positions.
And so he does the only thing that could be worse.
He doesn't know if he, as a journalist and major talk show host working for God's chosen soldier fighting the literal devil, he doesn't know if he has a higher standard of credibility to maintain than a random person on Twitter.
That's absurd, and there's no way he doesn't feel like that's an awful way to answer that question.
I like that there wasn't a follow-up to ask more there, too, because by just letting Owen's answer of, I don't know, sit there, it makes him look that much more stupid.
And I think the issue is that Owen is used to existing in spaces where he's just yelling at somebody at a protest in front of an iPhone or whatever.
And oftentimes you can catch them off guard and sort of overwhelm them and badger them with stuff like, hey, why do I get in trouble but this Twitter user doesn't?
I can't imagine actually being able to contain the thought that this is, like, meaningfully different than these other times that you've relied on bad information to defame somebody.
When you go back to InfoWars, are you going to just be on live, get handed a story with clips from someone you don't remember who it is, and run it?
Or are you going to make sure it was fact-checked?
And your answer was, well, I would say, after this experience, I am highly less likely to be handed a story or a video clip and air it without checking it myself.
Oh, and I think that there's a value to it beyond just sort of a shaming and rubbing your nose in it.
Sure.
The last time that there was a case that Owen was sued in, they had what appeared to be a promise to behave differently in the future based on what was the...
Like, he got away with not getting super severe punishments in the Sandy Hook case.
And largely some of that might have been predicated on the appearance of learning a lesson and the appearance of slight cooperation and a promise to do better.
So him being forced to acknowledge and deal with someone saying, hey, you didn't do better.
Yeah, there's nothing more really to gain out of this exchange, but we've had this moment, and now you can reflect on it, but you're not going to, so whatever.
I'm wondering today, now after this experience, sitting here today, when you go back to InfoWars, are you ever going to be on just live and run with a story and discuss things that are on your desk that you've never seen before?
Or are you going to make sure it was fact-checked?
Yeah, I mean, I'm worried that at this point we're borderline saying, like, hey, man, six or seven thousand more examples and we're really going to come down hard on you.
Six or seven thousand.
Maybe eight.
Maybe eight.
But ten is our max!
Ten thousand more examples and you're in trouble, sir!