Attempts to cancel Joe Rogan failed – Orange County Register

Joe Rogan is amazing.

Five years ago, I left Fox to start Stossel TV. I left because I was bored with live TV. Guests talk a lot but don’t say much.

Now, I produce videos like the ones I did on the 20th. I like having a month or more to study and then having more time to edit the video into a short clip that explains the intricacies but is also fun to watch.

This edited model was successful. Our short videos have an average of 2 million views.

Everyone is busy. They don’t want to sit and discuss face-to-face for hours.

But then Joe Rogan proved me wrong.

He talks to people, not for an hour, but usually for three hours. However, 11 million people stayed to listen. Eleven million!

How does he do that? He has no training in journalism. He has acted in sitcoms and hosted the reality show “Fear Factor.” I’m a mixed martial arts fan, so I’ve found that Rogan is the best commentator at UFC events.

But holding three hours of serious talk with intellectuals like the physicist Brian Cox or the mathematician Roger Penrose without the visual gimmick that makes TV viable is very different.

So I started listening to Rogan’s podcast. Suddenly, I found myself spending an hour, sometimes three, with Rogan and his guests. I learned more than watching the news on TV.

I really don’t know how Rogan does it. Maybe it’s because he’s a good listener and asks good questions. He recalled what he had learned from previous interviews and used those ideas when he asked other guests questions. Somehow, he makes three hours of education fun.

Now Rogan is being criticized for broadcasting “misinformation”.

Sometimes he has anti-vaxxers on his show who think the COVID-19 vaccine is harmful. Rogan himself is not vaccinated. He believes his natural immunity (he and his family already have COVID-19) is enough for protection. If he gets COVID-19 again, he thinks it won’t affect him much because he’s healthy, takes vitamins, etc.

I doubt. I am about to have my fourth dose of the vaccine.

But I still love hearing Rogan question anti-vaxxers and people with unusual ideas. I learned from his program.

But others said, “Rogan must be stopped. He kills people by broadcasting ‘misinformation.’ “Also, “He’s racist because he says the N-word.”

Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and several other musicians who I bet I’ve never heard of Rogan have pulled their music from Spotify, the service that carries his podcast.

They and others asked Spotify to drop his show.

Spotify does not.

And Rogan, unlike many people attacked by the mob, did not hide.

He did what we should all do if we are attacked for something we say: hit back with more words.

He quickly (no TV cosmetics – he apparently filmed it in his backyard) released a video on Instagram, pointing out that, “A lot of what we consider misinformation is just was briefly accepted as true. … If you say, ‘I don’t think cloth masks work’, you will be banned on social media. Now that has been stated publicly and repeatedly on CNN. If you say, ‘I think maybe COVID-19 came from a lab,’ you will be banned on many social media platforms. Now that’s the cover of Newsweek. ”

Rogan is right. Arbitrators who are complacent about the truth versus misinformation are often wrong.