In a dark corner of Dubbo RSL, Alan Jones has set up a broadcast stage in front of several rows of mostly empty chairs. Outside, dawn is breaking over the central New South Wales town, and the week’s dust storm is still visible in the powdery brown coating on the cars that line the town’s wide streets.

A handful of locals, collared shirts tucked into jeans, are here to listen to the show.

Three months have passed since Alan Jones urged Scott Morrison to “shove a sock down [Jacinda Ardern’s] throat” and Macquarie Media chairman Russell Tate warned him he would be sacked if he made similar comments again.

I’ve been listening to the show since then to see how he is faring. When I learned Jones would be broadcasting live as I passed through Dubbo, I decided to stop by.

“I’ve got a stack of people here so you don’t have to bellow out but I’ve asked at every forum we’ve had: shout if you’ve received a cent from the government in any of their drought packages. Shout!” says Jones to the onlookers, who respond with silence and a chuckle.

Jones has been promoting his tour of drought-affected towns for weeks, and to his radio listeners it might seem like he’s drawn a reasonable crowd.

Alan Jones and Peta Credlin at Harvey Norman in Dubbo for a live broadcast. Photograph: Else Kennedy/The Guardian

“People here with me in this broadcast [are] nodding their heads. Dubbo people,” he said of an audience of about five watching his show at the local Harvey Norman on Wednesday.

At each live show, four staffers sit at a desk to the left of the stage, equipped with multiple printers. During the news and ad breaks, they hand Jones scripts that he highlights and practices reading, ignoring the computer screen in front of him.

As he reads through one script before the live broadcast of his Sky show on Wednesday night, Jones suddenly lashes out at an assistant: “Why are some of them statements, some of them aren’t? What in God’s name are you doing?”

But on stage in front of an audience he turns on the charm. As he takes off his jacket during the morning broadcast he does a little booty shake, telling some ladies in the audience: “I’m not showing you my body, I’m just taking my coat off. I know you want to see more. You can dream.”

The women chuckle awkwardly and check behind them in case he is talking to someone else. Later they go up on stage and ask for a photo with him.

The climate change ‘hoax’

The 78-year-old Jones is one of Australia’s most prominent climate science deniers, and over the last three months he has focused his show on issues affecting farmers.

In all, the word “drought” has been mentioned more than 2,000 times across Jones’ radio and TV programs since 15 August; the word “water” 3,600 times; and the word “farmer” more than 3,000 times – sometimes more than 100 times in a single show.

But despite the bulk of scientific evidence connecting drought, water shortages, heat waves and bushfires to climate change, Jones manages to consistently link these issues to claims that climate change is “a hoax”, and “there’s no evidence whatsoever to support [it]”.

His producers have reportedly installed extra “dump” buttons since his Adern comments to cut offensive remarks before they go to air, but that hasn’t prevented some pretty wacky stuff getting through.

Since August, Jones hasn’t interviewed any climate scientists, but he has given a platform to climate science denier Christopher Monckton, climate sceptic Peter Ridd and fossil fuel advocate Bjorn Lomborg.

He has also suggested that the government secretly wants the cattle of drought-stricken farmers to die because reduced methane emissions would help it reach its Paris target.

“Why can’t the government underwrite [drought affected farmers]? Or is there another agenda? … Perhaps the other agenda is, well, we’ve got to kill animals to meet the Paris climate change commitment. So rather let them die, and then they won’t break wind and therefore we’ll be able to meet our climate change agreements. I mean, there’s some agenda here, because the answer is simple. We have to keep the breeding stock alive.”

Jones is a chief proponent of the theory that “greenies”, specifically Greens senator Richard Di Natale and Greens MP Adam Bandt, are prime culprits for the recent bushfires, because, he says, “the Greens have been campaigning for years to stop local councils and local fire crews carrying out control burns”. This despite the Greens never having been in government and local councils not having jurisdiction over hazard reduction in most cases.

Listening to arguments like this is exhausting, because my brain tries to run a kind of autocorrect, fact-checking information as Jones speaks in his rapid fire fashion.

But for regular listeners of the show, there is a consistent internal logic that holds things together. If you believe Jones’ argument that climate change is “a hoax”, then it is easier to buy into subsequent theories and blame games.

Who’s ripping off the farmers?

In some areas, Jones is less consistent. For example, his concern for drought-stricken farmers falters when it comes to advertisers who have supported the boycott of his program.

In the wake of Jones’ comments about Ardern, the show has lost hundreds of advertisers and reportedly half its advertising revenue.

Jones used to be a big fan of Norco milk, a dairy farmers’ cooperative that markets itself on its support for drought-affected farmers.

Before Norco withdrew advertising, Jones read advertisements for the company and urged his listeners to seek them out.

“Next time you’re at the supermarket, have a think about where you want your money to go. It should be staying here in Australia. It should be going straight to the hard-working dairy farmer. This is one thing we can do, we buy Norco milk.”

But after Norco withdrew, Jones told a listener: “I am just concerned from letters I am getting that the increased price that Norco … are charging for one and two and three litre milk, whether that increase is all going back to the farmer at the farm gate, which it was argued was happening … I’m not certain that’s the case.”

Jones has since reiterated this concern, but has not substantiated it.

Jones has also switched his position on whether Coles was ripping off dairy farmers after the retailer withdrew advertising.

On 28 June, when a dairy farmer called him up to explain the negative impact the supermarket was having on his business, Jones insisted it wasn’t supermarkets but milk processors that were “ripping off the dairy farmer”.

The day the retailer withdrew advertising from his show on 28 August, Jones advised customers to “shop local, stay local, stay local, stay loyal” instead of shopping at Coles.

By October he was replaying and repeatedly quoting an interview with dairy farmer Scott Priebbenow, who said: “It’s the supermarkets, you dirty, rotten mongrel bastards – how dare you put the price up and not pass it on to the farmers?”

A reality check

This blurring of fact and opinion is troublesome. Despite the small turnout in Dubbo, Jones has a large media platform. His 2GB breakfast show has around 141,000 daily listeners in Sydney, and is also syndicated on Brisbane station 4BC and Canberra’s 4CC.

In addition to radio, each week Jones produces two one-hour Sky news shows, a column in the Daily Telegraph and a column in The Australian.

And Jones’ shows have a ripple effect on other media platforms. Each morning, the breakfast show generates an average of four to 10 articles in other publications. And the closer the show comes to controversy, the more headlines it generates.

After listening to Jones for a few months, the rush, agitation and general sourness of his commentary has left me tired and a little sad.

As I drive out of Dubbo, the bare earth, heat and cloudless sky of the drought surround me. Jones’s words that “this is a crisis” echo in my ears, and he’s right. But I’m relieved to switch to a station that connects this crisis to the reality of climate change, and fuels its reporting with facts rather than emotion.

But I know this won’t be the last I hear of Jones. The two-year contract he signed in July will keep him on the air until July 2021.