New documentary on Alex Jones premieres at SXSW 2024

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin-based conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is the subject of a new documentary that premiered at this year's SXSW festival.

"The Truth vs. Alex Jones" focuses on Jones' Austin trial in July 2022, stemming from a lawsuit brought by Sandy Hook families related to Jones' statements about the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The trial ultimately led to a nearly $50 million judgment against Jones. 

FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak sat down with Dan Reed, the film's director, in a special FOX 7 Focus.

JOHN KRINJAK: So tell us a little bit about this film. I understand it chronicles the trial of Alex Jones, specifically the trial relating to his lies about the Sandy Hook school shooting. He was sued by families of the victims of that shooting. Why was this an important story for you to tell?

DAN REED: It was the most extraordinary thing I'd heard, which is this Tyson of the internet, the conspiracy, you know, guru of the internet, who I'd heard of going way back, years and years. And suddenly he was spreading all these theories that the Sandy Hook shooting had never happened, and all these poor little, you know, these twenty 6-year-old kids who'd been gunned down just never existed or were part of some government plot. And I thought, this is extraordinary. A lot of people seem to be buying into this, and it's just so bizarre. And there's so much of it that I want to look into what's actually behind this. 

READ MORE ON THE ALEX JONES TRIAL

• Alex Jones seeks new trial after $1B Sandy Hook verdict
• Alex Jones can't use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying Sandy Hook families, judge rules
• Alex Jones trial: Jones mocks Sandy Hook parent in latest Infowars episode, takes stand 

JOHN KRINJAK: So the trial that played out actually happened right here in Austin. What was the most shocking thing to you that that happened in that trial?

DAN REED: Well, I mean, Alex, Alex is a showman. Alex Jones is a showman. And he really was trying to turn the trial into his show. And I think, you know, didn't really appreciate the constraints of the trial. The judge kept on telling him, look, you know, this is not your show. You have to tell the truth. And I think he found that very, very awkward to abide within those, those confines of telling the truth and telling stuff that's backed up by evidence and obeying the rules of the court. So, yeah, it was bizarre the extent to which this man who's really, really at home on a TV set, tried to adapt and really struggled to adapt to being in a court of law.

JOHN KRINJAK: So this, this documentary, obviously it's raw. It's real. What do you hope people take away when they see this? 

DAN REED: This is really like the first big trial of the age of disinformation. You know, conspiracy theories and politics have been mixed together now. And Alex Jones's is really that, he does it brilliantly and very prolifically and to great harm. And I want people to understand this ten-year journey that these parents have been on and how difficult it was for them to stop Alex Jones from lying about the murder of their children, and to realize that one of the only places that the lies can be really challenged with evidence is now in a court of law. It's almost impossible to do it in the media space. And this is where we're at. We have to take the people like the Sandy Hook parents have to take a mammoth figure in the media world to court, which is a real struggle for them, in order to stop him lying. 

MORE FOX 7 FOCUS

• Texas primaries: Unpacking the results from key races
• Community First tiny home community for the homeless expanding
• Austin guaranteed income pilot program: Does it work?

JOHN KRINJAK: Why was it so important to have the premiere here in Austin at SXSW?

DAN REED: Well, the court scenes in Austin are extraordinary. We, the judge very kindly, did have two cameras and ten microphones inside the courtroom. And so this is, an American state trial, as you've never seen it before. It's immersive, it's vivid, it's very dramatic. And it, you know, it's a tribute to the Austin judge and the officials and everyone who… the lawyers to have run the trial, such a big historic and difficult trial. So well and so I think yeah, this is, this is, this is the American justice [system] the way you've never seen it before. 

"The Truth vs. Alex Jones" will screen again at Alamo Drafthouse's South Lamar location on March 13 at 6:15 p.m. for SXSW badge holders. Reed says the film will air later this month on HBO.