Joe Rogan’s recent podcast featuring CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta is a perfect microcosm for understanding why the public currently reports record-low levels of trust in the media.
What has been most telling about the conversation is CNN’s response in its wake. Take, for instance, the network’s morning show, New Day. After showing a heavily edited video of the conversation in an attempt to present Gupta in the best possible light, anchor Brianna Keilar stated, “I’m really glad you did this … there’s so many people that can listen to the sense that you make.” Gupta then responded, saying that while CNN’s viewers undoubtedly “understand the science,” he took the burden upon himself to (begrudgingly) “go to a place” where viewers weren’t so seemingly enlightened.
Gupta also followed up his podcast appearance with an op-ed stating how he had realized it was “probably futile” to change Rogan’s mind and that there was “plenty of misinformation out there to support [Joe’s] convictions.” In other words, he implies that it was, of course, a waste of time talking with that troglodyte but for the burden, selflessly shouldered in his desire for the public good, to enlighten Rogan’s viewers.
The image of Gupta as an apostle of science proselytizing to the uneducated anti-vaxxers is an excellent illustration of the disconnect between legacy media and the majority of people. The news banner in the CNN video tells all in regard to the network’s actual opinion of Rogan and his viewers: “DR. GUPTA GOES INTO ‘LION’S-DEN’ TO TALK WITH SKEPTIC JOE ROGAN.”
The snarky and condescending tone is markedly different from the one Gupta had when sitting directly across from Joe. The podcast appearance, as is always the case with Rogan, was defined first and foremost by respectful discourse. Gupta did not appear quite so authoritative and condescending when removed from his natural habitat of a newsroom filled with zero diversity of opinion.
When Gupta did begin to revert back to the comforts of CNN’s holier-than-thou ethos, Rogan immediately cut through the nonsense and kept him on track. For instance, when pressed on his network’s blatant lies, Gupta began to equivocate and deny. Rogan then expressed a sentiment shared by many for the corporate media’s consistent twisting of facts: “Yes, they did [lie]. I watched.” Rogan then proceeded to get a CNN anchor to do something that he otherwise would never do: Gupta admitted that the network was wrong.
Rogan is as popular as he is because of his first-rate ability to pull the authenticity out of his guests. The conversational marathon he puts guests through serves as a colander for any character posturing or personality facades. Long-form podcasts discourage the context-free, sound-bite atmosphere that outlets such as CNN rely on. Rogan’s viewers have come to expect honesty and logic, not hubris or condescension.
Networks such as CNN, on the other hand, are forced to cater to the sense of moral superiority that they have actively fostered in their audience. They have subsequently attempted to explain Gupta’s appearance on Rogan’s podcast as a sort of missionary act of science, undertaken only for the greater good — hence the almost apologetic tone for having had one of their commentators appear on a show outside of their hermetically sealed truth bubble.
The Rogan-Gupta conversation was a perfect snapshot of the problem with legacy media. It also predicts the latter’s inevitable replacement by alternative communication mediums such as podcasting. The phoniness of the on-air personality — Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent — is so clearly pronounced when juxtaposed against the often timid and bumbling real person, Sanjay Gupta.
So no, the conversion efforts to the true religion of government-approved science were not successful. On the contrary, the evident conclusion can only be that it was a terrible decision for Gupta to appear on Rogan’s show. The optics of having CNN’s chief medical correspondent unable to provide an answer for the systematic lying of the network, on top of his inability to produce clear rebuttals to many of Rogan’s arguments, have only further tarnished the credibility of CNN.
Dominick Sansone has published work on culture and foreign policy at the American Spectator, the National Interest, and Taki’s Magazine.
