‘If you want my advice, don’t take my advice.’ When the host isn’t an expert.
When controversy erupted over the edgy banter of the “Fear Factor” host-turned-podcaster Joe Rogan, Jonathan Jarry wasn’t surprised.
After all, Mr. Jarry, co-host of “The Body of Evidence” podcast, had delved into “The Joe Rogan Experience” months before the podcast and its platform, the media streamer Spotify, took heat for using racist and misogynist language and spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
His finding: Though Mr. Rogan’s show is seductive and “delicious,” especially to young male viewers, it often sends conflicting or inaccurate messages about not just science, but how science works. The show swirls around a recurring theme: The government and its media lackeys aren’t telling the truth. Joe Rogan and his guests will.
“You just can’t say whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want to,” says Mr. Jarry, a science communicator with the McGill Office of Science and Society in Montreal. Tech companies and popular podcasters “are growing into a responsibility they didn’t seek out, but that they have to meet,” he adds.
The pandemic’s large death toll, which has topped 900,000 in the United
