(2022-02-04) Levy Rogan

Steven Levy on Joe Rogan. In an episode that went live on December 31, Rogan’s guest spun conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines, thematically consistent with some previous shows.

Rogan, a master communicator, did much better. Addressing his phone camera, he explained how he simply hosted well-credentialed guests whose views may be outside of mainstream wisdom. He just wants to hear what they have to say! “I’m interested in finding out what the facts are,” he said. “I don’t always get it right.”

Rogan ended by explaining that he’s misunderstood. “I never tried to do anything with this podcast other than just talk to people and have interesting conversations,” he said.

I thought I’d go to the source—the actual podcast in question. This involved a Herculean act of audio stamina, listening to all of Joe Rogan’s three-hour interview with mRNA vaccine apostate Robert Malone, episode 1757

As Rogan says in his video, Malone had a hand in developing the mRNA technique. But he has since become a virulent critic of widespread vaccine adoption, charging that a massive coverup has suppressed talk of its harmful side effects. Many of his specific claims have been debunked, leading experts to conclude that he is a source of misinformation.

He’s a medical scientist, and some of his points make sense on their face. But others are at odds with well-documented studies.

The entirety of the podcast makes it clear that Rogan and Malone are on the same team. When Malone uncorks questionable allegations about disastrous vaccine effects and the global cabal of politicians and drugmakers pulling strings, Rogan responds with uh-huhs and wows. (conspiracy theory)

Often Malone backs up his contentions with unnamed studies or, at one point, Substack posts. Charges like Joe Biden taking a fake vaccine go unchallenged. At times, Rogan brings up vaccine-skeptic talking points unprompted, displaying a firm grasp of the arguments against taking or mandating the jab.

But here’s the tell: Not once does the well-read Rogan mention two charts that are extremely familiar to anyone with the most casual consumption of news. You certainly have seen them. One displays the raw numbers of people hospitalized by Covid; the other enumerates people who die from the virus. In both charts there is a line representing people who are vaccinated—it hovers over the baseline of zero

That’s not a rumor or an anecdote or something found on an unvetted paper or a Substack declaration. It’s the truth, and you can check the coffins to confirm.

Malone claims that hospitals fraudulently report Covid as cause of death all the time, even when people die of gunshots, in order to collect more government funds. That claim has been debunked

Some things seem pretty clear from this mess. Personally, I want a free society where Joe Rogan can have whoever he wants on his podcast, and can conduct an interview any way he wants. But that means accepting that responsible publishing outlets might not want to be associated with him, or pay him nine-figure sums

Daniel Ek should know that as a presenter of original content, he bears responsibility for that content. He cannot squirm away by saying that he is only licensing Rogan’s work, not publishing it (as he apparently told his employees). Ek paid $100 million so that Spotify would be the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience—Spotify’s podcast flagship—and no amount of contractual doublespeak erases that.