FERGUSON, MISSOURI — Former Infowars video editor and field producer Josh Owens released a memoir titled "The Madness of Believing," chronicling his four years working for Alex Jones from 2013 to 2017. The book details assignments Owens carried out for the site and describes his view of Jones both on and off camera.

In the book, Owens writes that "Jones's instinctual desire to distance himself from the mainstream led us to unusual and sometimes dark places." During his tenure, he was sent to California to search for evidence of elevated radiation levels following the Fukushima nuclear accident, to Ferguson, Missouri, to cover Black Lives Matter protests, and to Nevada to retrieve Cliven Bundy's cattle. He also dined with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and fabricated a video purporting to show an Islamic State operative entering the United States.

"I didn't enjoy the anxiety-inducing trips, regardless of whether there was anything to find or not. It was just gut-wrenching because it was constant chaos," Owens said. He also recounts an episode in which Jones handed over his Rolex to an employee and asked, "Am I that terrible of a person?"

In the book, Owens describes Jones as "a pure expression of self-centered freedom, a defiant assertion of his own whims, seemingly unconcerned with how his actions affected others, and on occasion, even himself." Reflecting on the personal toll of the job, he said, "Working for Jones affected me immensely. I entered that world as a person I now don't recognize at all," adding that he was deradicalized with the help of other people.

Jones has claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which left 20 children and six educators dead, was a hoax. He faces a defamation judgment of $1.5 billion in damages, and the judgment demanded the sale of Infowars. The satirical news site The Onion purchased Infowars out of bankruptcy in 2024, but a bankruptcy court later rejected the winning bid, and the company remains in limbo. Jones claimed that at the 2016 peak of his show he reached 5 million listeners daily, with video streams exceeding 80 million a month. Jones has continued to broadcast his show and sell products despite being deplatformed from social media, and he has said he maintains a backup studio, server and company that cannot be touched by the courts.