A grieving mum has condemned an interview with a conspiracy theorist about the Sandy Hook massacre due to be aired on Father’s Day.
Nelba Marquez-Greene who lost her six-year-old daughter Ana Grace has spoken out against an NBC interview conducted with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
He claims the school shooting in which 20 young children lost their lives in 2012 was a “government hoax.” Shockingly he has claimed that the shooting never happened and was “staged”, according to The Independent.
In the interview, well-known American journalist Megyn Kelly quizzes Jones about his thoughts on the incident. After seeing the interview, Marquez-Greene said it was an “egregious offence” to those who had lost children.
She said airing the interview on Father’s Day was insulting to all the fathers whose children died in the attack.
This is what grief looks like in America, 5 years after losing a child in a mass shooting. #Grief #AlexJones #MegynKelly https://t.co/ES991QFhGR
— Nelba Márquez-Greene (@Nelba_MG) June 12, 2017
“To give Alex Jones a platform on Father's Day is especially cruel to me,” she told The Washington Post.
Kelly has responded to criticism surrounding her interview by saying the media need to “shine a light” on who Alex Jones is.
Jones who hosts an internet news show called Infowars has been in the spotlight lately, particularly because Donald Trump appears to endorse some of his views.
Marquez-Greene responded to Kelly’s justification for the interview by saying: “Shining a light works on cockroaches,” she said. “It doesn't work on Alex Jones.
“Any time you give someone like Alex Jones a platform, their followers will double-down or increase their attack on grieving families.
“You can’t just put him in a box and say he's just a character. He’s really hurting people.”
Next Sunday, I sit down with conservative radio host @RealAlexJones to discuss controversies and conspiracies #SundayNight June 18 on NBC pic.twitter.com/7bVz6Fobf5
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 11, 2017
After finding out about the interview, Marquez-Greene decided to directly tweet Kelly a photo of her daughter Ana. “Here you go @megynkelly - her name is Ana Grace Marquez-Greene. Say her name - stare at this & tell me it's worth it. @nbc #SandyHook,” she wrote.
Other parents and relatives of the victims have vowed to boycott NBC over the interview.
Marquez-Greene says since the interview she’s had to keep her 12-year-old son off social media because of the effect the interview could have on him. He was just eight years old when his little sister was killed.
“It's hard enough to deal with losing a sister in a mass shooting. We are trying to protect him as much as we can,” she explained. “He lives in a world where people don't think his sister's death is real. I'm not ready for him to know that yet.”
