Joe Rogan podcast attracts 10 times more views than CNN and similarly crushes MSM news programs. Over the past week, after a blog post I made about how Joe Rogan was disrupting the mainstream media, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by former Fox Houston newswoman Ivory Hecker about what the future of the mainstream media looks like.
You may remember Ivory as the woman who was fired after interrupting a live, on-air weather report this past summer to claim that Fox was “muzzling” her, before turning over her evidence to Project Veritas.
A follow up interview by Project Veritas revealed that Hecker was reportedly reprimanded by the network for bringing up hydroxychloroquine during an interview and that Fox 26’s Sales Coordinator “admitted on tape that the CDC is heavily influencing stations such as theirs due to the amount of money they are pouring into ad campaigns – and how that, in turn, affects the network’s coverage of major health issues.”
Suffice to say, I had no trouble seeing why Hecker took interest in my recent campaign against the mainstream media.
My interview with Ivory was prompted by an article I wrote called “The Mainstream Media Is Losing The Fight Of Its Life…All Thanks To Joe Rogan”.
In that article, I described why I was expecting one of the largest mainstream media pivots in history in 2022, catalyzed by capitalism and common sense. I wrote about why Joe Rogan leading the pack would force changes throughout the industry and why I thought the media’s narrative on Covid would have to change in 2022.
In short, I believe the legacy media must change:
- Due to capitalism. They are going to have to adapt their business models or they will become money-losing, financially failing enterprises.
- To respond to continued outrage from both sides of the aisle being stripped of hearing both sides of the story. All Joe Rogan does is allow the other side of the story to present their case – he rarely argues how people should think. Instead, he just gives them a chance to consider all the potential facts available.
- If they (the mainstream media) want their candidates (Democrats) to have any chance in hell of even showing up at mid-terms this year. As I wrote in November, the recent blowout in Virginia, which quickly turned red and elected Glenn Youngkin after being in favor of Biden during the Presidential election, could wind up becoming the trend nationwide during mid-terms.
I had previously been critical of the mainstream media’s:
- Handling of news about the new omicron variant of Covid – read here
- Coverage of the Joe Rogan / ivermectin news – read here
- Inability to even touch on the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop – read here
- Inability to realize that Covid, and the lab leak theory, wasn’t a “conspiracy” in late 2019/early 2020 – read here
“The mainstream media has to come to terms with the fact that their industry is being swallowed,” I started off the interview by arguing, citing a phrase from Rogan’s years old boxing vs. UFC debate with Lou DiBella.
In that interview, Rogan told DiBella “your sport is being swallowed”. Now, I’m saying the same thing to the mainstream media.
“Rogan brings viewers wherever he goes, so he’s going to be tough to cancel,” I continued, making the argument for the free market dictating how the industry would evolve.
“Capitalism and the free market are going to force changes as a negative consequence of the actions the media has taken over the last year,” I told Hecker during our interview.
“Because he comes by it honestly, because he inquires about the truth with good intention – he’s not serving anybody, he’s trying to find answers about fringe questions – those are the things the mainstream media doesn’t do. The mainstream is already losing the fight of its life and in coming years they’re going to have to make some marked pivots, or else capitalism is going to have its way with them.”
When asked about the media’s coverage of the Joe Rogan/ivermectin story, I said: “The coverage is so blatantly untruthful, it leads you to this place where you have to wonder, ‘Is this nefarious or it is ignorance’?”
“I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I’ve done enough reading and enough critical thinking on my own to come to conclusions that I think are far closer to the objective truth than the media has been able to arrive at,” I continued.
“When you come out and make such a brazen misstatement – that Rogan is taking ‘horse medicine’ – people are left to wonder what’s really going on here. It transcends both sides of the political aisle and it just ‘gets in’ for people carrying with them a modicum of common sense,” I continued.
“Media is an industry, just like pharma is an industry, just like automotive is an industry. Industries are generally beholden to what makes them money. Capitalism is going to force changes,” I argue.
I continued: “There’s a reason Spotify hasn’t cancelled Rogan, right? Because they’ve invested in him. Why do they invest in him? Because he brings people to the table! And that equates to ad revenue and viewership. The same engine that’s keeping him there is going to force the changes elsewhere.”
When asked about how the free market can interfere with media when the government can print infinite money and use that to sponsor (and, by proxy fund, mainstream news), I answer:
“At some point, no matter how much the government intervenes, its a mathematical certainty that capitalism will have its way with the media. Otherwise, we become China: we become a state run media and a state run economy. It’s a slippery slope to get there from where we are right now. But I do think the propaganda and campaign to get vaccinated was highly disturbing.”
When asked about Rogan’s recent interviews with Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone, I offered my take on why Rogan’s method of discourse has caught on:
“You have an instance here where you have experts trying to opine on what they think is best and what the public needs to know, but you have this intervention from the tech companies, from the government, saying ‘Hey, you guys are too stupid to listen both sides of the story and make your decision accordingly. We have to protect you from this one set of opinions, despite the fact that they’re from published authors with incredible credentials.’”
I continued, “And what Rogan does, the reason he’s caught on – he’s seeing who gets banned and he’s saying ‘come on’ and tell me what you were saying, I’ll let my listeners decide whether you’re as full of shit as the mainstream media thinks you are or if your points hold water.”
Ivory Hecker adds: “I think for a long time the corporate monopoly has gotten away with using suppression tactics to snuff out content and act like this person/this concept doesn’t exist. With the rise of alternative media, they don’t have as much of an option to do that.”
“I think a lot of corporate news journalists are so brainwashed, they don’t realize what other opportunities for journalism are out there,” the former Fox 26 reporter adds.
Speaking about the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, the Covid lab leak hypothesis, adverse events to the vaccine and the new Omicron variant, Hecker says: “The way the media reacted lost them a lot of viewers. They’re turning off their own audience.”
If you asked critical questions about the origins of Covid, “you were written off as a conspiracy theorist, you were written off as a maniac, you were written off as someone on the fringe,” I added. Now, the media has all but admitted that the lab leak hypothesis likely holds water.
I made the point: “People say ‘If that was the conspiracy theory then and I was being told what a maniac I was then for asking the most common sense questions available, and then it turns out that’s the truth, what’s going on now that I think are common sense questions that I’m being told I’m being ridiculous for – but we’re going to find out in 12 months are the questions we should have been asking and getting honest answers to all along?’”
“I think this is what has created so many conspiracy theories in America,” Hecker says.
“It’s not conspiracy theories, though,” I conclude. “It’s just a search for the truth.”
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You can watch my full interview with Ivory here: