Newtown Conspiracy Theory Professor Stands Behind Controversial Comments

A Newtown conspiracy theory cooked up by a Florida Atlantic University professor has been criticized as insensitive and outrageous, but the man behind the theory says he stands behind it

James Tracy, a media professor at FAU, wrote on his conspiracy theory blog that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December that left 26 people dead didn’t happen as the media reported.

Tracy wrote about the Newtown conspiracy theory in his blog, Memory Hole: “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place—at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described.”

Tracy went on to claim that there were multiple shooters and that authorities are lying about the number of dead. His Newtown conspiracy theory is that President Obama somehow trained “crisis actors” to drum up support for gun control.

He wrote:

“As documents relating to the Sandy Hook shooting continue to be assessed and interpreted by independent researchers there is a growing awareness that the media coverage of the massacre of 26 children and adults was intended primarily for public consumption to further larger political ends.”

Tracy defended his Newtown conspiracy theory in an interview with local CBS12 news reporter, saying that journalists failed in their duty to uncover what really happened. In his blog, he theorized that no one was actually killed and the shooting was actually a training exercise.

Others have stepped forward to defend Tracy’s Newtown conspiracy theory as well. Peter Phillips, president of the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored, told Yahoo! News that the professor isn’t promoting his own conspiracy theory as much as he’s calling out the media for distorting the news.