Joe Rogan drops brutal 2-word bomb on mainstream media

Joe Rogan is a major media personality. Not only did Spotify give him a $250 million contract to keep The Joe Rogan Experience on its platform, but Rogan also has close to 20 million YouTube subscribers.

However, while Joe Rogan is undoubtedly a key player in the media landscape, he falls squarely in the category of “alternative” media.

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Rogan is never afraid to challenge narratives. He says controversial things all the time, and he brings on guests with a huge variety of different viewpoints to have real conversations instead of staged interviews.

And, of course, he lets Elon Musk get high live on air. Plus his podcast may have helped shape the 2024 election and may have played a pivotal role in bringing President Donald Trump back to the White House.

Some would argue that this makes Rogan one of the most powerful media figures out there. 

He’s not, however, a big fan of many other media outlets. In fact, he had two choice words to say about the mainstream media, and those words were not very complimentary.

Joe Rogan’s words for the media won’t go over well. 

Image source: NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Joe Rogan slams the mainstream media with blunt assessment of their actual job

While journalists often like to see themselves as defenders of truth, justice, and the American Way, Rogan made very clear recently that he sees them very differently.

In fact, Rogan said recently that the people delivering the news are not even really journalists at all. Instead, they have a different job entirely: The mainstream media is comprised of “just propagandists,” Rogan claimed.

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Rogan made these comments about the role of journalists on The Joe Rogan Experience episode number 2342, which aired on June 25 and featured guest Jim Norton, a comic and co-host of “Sword Fight with Nikki and Jim Norton,” and “UFC Unfiltered.”

Rogan told Norton, in no uncertain terms, that he believes “they’re paid to lie,” and that while there are a “few people out there that will give you unbiased news,” that’s not generally the case for most media outlets.

And, unlike many who complain about the media but who do so from a partisan lens – like those who argue the media is “too woke,” or too conservative and corporate-owned – Rogan thinks this is a bipartisan problem. 

In fact, he even had sharp criticism for those who want the media to hide what President Trump is doing if it doesn’t fit their agenda.

“When they will highlight a very particular thing that maybe Trump did or someone did on the right, and everybody attacks them. It’s like, do you want them to lie? Yeah. Just because you want your team to be infallible? Like, what do you want?” Rogan asked.

Rogan’s history with the mainstream media has not been a positive one

It’s not a surprise that Rogan is not a fan of mainstream media, as he’s had issues with traditional news outlets for a long time.

In fact, after Rogan posted that he had tested positive for Covid in 2021 and commented that he had taken ivermectin, the story was picked up by CNN in a segment in which Anderson Cooper discussed the controversy surrounding ivermectin’s use.

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Rogan claims CNN misrepresented what he said and tried to portray him as taking horse medication when the drugs came from a legitimate doctor. Rogan has clearly remained frustrated about it to this day, repeatedly taking shots at CNN and even claiming the network force-fed him “morons.”

Rogan has also ridiculed what he believed was excessive coverage of the January 6 incident in the U.S. Capitol, while the media was downplaying the alleged decline of President Biden’s mental health. And Rogan has criticized major news outlets as being biased, disconnected from real people, and part of a dying industry.

So, it’s clear there is no love lost between Rogan and the mainstream media. And his bold two-word assertion that they are “just propagandists” is likely going to be well received by his audience, many of whom have turned to podcasts like Rogan’s in the first place to escape what they believe is a news media that simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth. 

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