Colby Hall Defends Media ‘Schadenfreude’ Over $4.1 Million Verdict Against Alex Jones: ‘Fabulous Karma’

Mediaite founding editor Colby Hall defended what he called media’s “schadenfreude” over Thursday’s $4.1 million verdict against conspiracy theorist and the founder and owner of Infowars Alex Jones.

Appearing on Thursday’s On Balance with Leland Vittert on NewsNation, Hall said that the judgment against Jones “is fabulous karma and I think we should care, actually. I think there’s a great deal of schadenfreude.”

Hall called Jones a “seminal figure in kind of this start of like conspiracy and, really, misinformation.”

Hall went on to say:

He will always thought himself as an entertainer but a lot of listeners viewers took seriously and he made a ton of money off of really ugly, bad conspiracy theories. For example, that Sandy Hook was staged and those kids and parents were all crisis actors.

I saw somewhere that he was upwards to $800,000 a day purely off of ad revenue from that and so I think it’s very, very satisfied to see him finally getting called out and embarrassed.

And you know, it’s a horrible, horrible tragic story and I hope that it’s not over because I think that he should, there should be more than just I’m losing, you know, a small percentage of his of his well, I think 4 million dollars. but over 20 families minus the legal fees. you know, just over $100,000.

Hall gave a “broader sort of theoretical question” about where “the First Amendment and free speech cover conspiracies.”

Jones, said Hall, “would argue that he was performance art and it was so absurd that it was that was an easy argument to understand and it was a lucrative one.”

Hall continued:

But when we get into a world of news entertainment where there’s so much analysis and so much opinion. and you know, the capital J journalism doesn’t really apply anymore because, you know, just the facts wouldn’t rate, so, of course, much shows like your own that bring some analysis to that. But of course, that’s all subjective and so it is it is a slippery slope.

I think if there’s some glee and schadenfreude in over this story in the media it’s directed directly toward Alex Jones, but I think you’re wise to bring up this larger concern that where do we draw the line and, you know, we say now like, oh, it’s an easy obvious line to find. Two years from now or a decade from now, and you know, we may regret that.

Watch above, via NewsNation.