The mainstream media has whipped itself into a frenzy over the last several months trying to get podcaster Joe
Rogan neutered or canceled, and the reason why is clear:
He refuses to bow to outrage mobs.
In the coronavirus pandemic era, where the only opinions acceptable to the press (and Democrats) related to both the virus and the vaccine appear to be whatever the government is saying at the time, Rogan has earned the ire of media figures on cable news outlets and the like because he sometimes expresses alternative views about the COVID-19 vaccine that either question or go against official CDC recommendations.
For instance, his detractors went nuts last September after he announced that he’d tested positive for COVID and was taking a combination of treatments recommended by his doctor, including monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin.
His mention of ivermectin, which in large doses is also used as a deworming drug for horses, prompted “news” outlets like CNN to air “report” after “report” mocking Rogan for taking a “livestock drug” or “horse dewormer,” with such outlets leaving out the fact that ivermectin had in fact been previously approved by the FDA for treatment in humans in much smaller doses to treat parasitic infections.
To date, the FDA has not approved it for use for COVID, but there are clinical trials being conducted to determine whether or not it is effective.
In October, Rogan hosted CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and roasted him for his network’s smear campaign against him. Rogan got Gupta to admit that CNN should have clarified that ivermectin could also be used by humans, though Gupta would never outright admit that his colleagues, including anchor Don Lemon, lied about Rogan.
Because Rogan has continued to confront his critics — and because he’s hosted medical experts that sometimes diverge from the CDC’s official guidelines on the virus and the vaccine — even after the ivermectin controversy, the media, too, has ramped up its efforts to get Rogan to back down, urging platforms like Spotify and YouTube to either pull or censor his content.
But the media has been largely unsuccessful in their attempts to get Spotify, where Rogan’s podcast is hosted, to pull his COVID programs. Because of that, so-called medical professionals and celebrities have stepped up to put pressure on Spotify, because apparently in their view, it’s dangerous to raise questions and sometimes have contrarian opinions to the government when it comes to public health policy.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has even suggested that platforms like Spotify should do what they can to censor content that doesn’t echo official government narratives on public health matters, about as chilling of a stance as it gets.
Even the people who don’t necessarily agree with Rogan but who aren’t participating in the various campaigns to bring him to heel should be deeply disturbed at what are clearly coordinated attempts to silence him, including by the Biden administration, simply because he sometimes expresses a different point of view than those of public health officials.
The media and other critics of Rogan would characterize what Rogan says as “misinformation,” but when one considers how often the government has changed their own stances on COVID-related matters over the last two years, including over speculation on how the virus originated (Wuhan wet market or Wuhan lab?), they really have precious little room to preach about others supposedly spreading “misinformation.”
Media analyst Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
