Happy birthday, Joe Rogan, and rest in peace, regime media

Joe Rogan—America’s most influential podcaster—was born on this day in 1967. (At least, that’s what the online claims all say.) Gen X Joe is now 58, but the regime media that he grew up with may not last for many more of his birthdays. Rogan’s long-form interviews are just one trend that is crowding out the old guard.

Last year, he invited both major presidential candidates to come down to his Texas studio for a discussion. During the final week of October, both Donald Trump and JD Vance sat for separate three-hour chats on the Joe Rogan Experience (six total hours).

The Harris campaign declined to send their candidate. But Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (D—PA) did make an appearance just days before the vote in November and Bernie Sanders has been a regular guest. (Sanders was also endorsed by Rogan in 2016).

AdWeek later reported that Americans spent more minutes with Rogan during October 2024, in the heat of that very hot presidential campaign, than they did watching any of the cable news networks—including the Fox News Channel.

Access to this huge audience carries an equally large risk for newsmakers. When their talking points expire, Rogan still has more than two hours left to ask probing questions. An inauthentic person is going to get exposed by this format. And the embarrassment will be remembered forever by the uniquely engaged audience.

Whatever else may be said of them, people who eagerly and regularly consume three-hour interviews do not suffer from short attention spans.

In their post-election soul searching, some Democratic partisans have suggested creating their own Joe Rogan.

In the specific case, this misses the point that Rogan and his guests do not fit into any ideological box. The show certainly does not fit into a conventionally Right-leaning container. If anything, the Joe Rogan Experience presents an eclectic and at times inconsistent political voice. That makes Rogan exactly like the swing voters who decide our elections and helps explain his enormous popularity.

But on a general level, Rogan is a symptom of the problem alleged by his detractors, not the cause of it. If Joe Rogan never did another show, his audience would not return to either the dying regime media or some hypothetical Left-wing Rogan replicant.

Where would they go?

The rise of the new media and the causes of death for the old media is the subject of the April 2024 special issue of Capital Research magazine.

Here’s a peek at what’s inside:

• Scott Walter introduces the special issue with an overview the changing landscape of journalism.
• Michael Watson examines the Left’s nonprofit journalism empire and a half-billion-dollar initiative by liberal foundations to “revitalize” liberal-leaning local outlets.
• Guest author Matt Palumbo fact-checks the fact-checkers.
• Ken Braun debunks Newsguard’s “Nutrition Label” ratings of news outlets.
• Guest author Tim Daughtry observes the battle lines after the Left’s “long march through the cultural institutions” of America.
• Ken Braun finds some hope for the future in the growing opportunities for journalism on the right.