Joe Rogan’s response to critics leaves many liberal pundits unsatisfied

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Joe Rogan breaks silence on Spotify controversy over COVID content

Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley discusses free speech and private censorship on 'America Reports.'

Many liberal pundits were left unsatisfied when podcasting giant Joe Rogan broke his silence on Sunday after being accused show of peddling misinformation about COVID-19 that led to a public rebuke.

"I mean I don't know that he can be reformed," ABC’s "The View" co-host Joy Behar said. 

Spotify has been facing growing pressure to remove Rogan from its service over allegations that his popular show has been peddling COVID "misinformation," causing musicians like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to pull their music from the streaming giant. 

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Many liberal pundits were left unsatisfied when podcasting giant Joe Rogan broke his silence on Sunday after being accused show of peddling misinformation about COVID-19. (Photo by: Vivian Zink/Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Rogan spoke about the challenges of preparing for his shows that are unscripted and free-flowing. He defended his interviews with Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist, and Dr. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist, that resulted in some criticism and apparently led to Young's decision to call on his songs being removed from the platform. He also challenged the word "misinformation" given that so much is still being learned about COVID-19.

Spotify announced that it will begin to put a disclaimer at the beginning of Rogan’s show when he discusses COVID. Rogan thanked Spotify for its support and expressed approval of the added disclaimer to his podcast and vowed to invite guests to balance out the controversial COVID views that are said by others on his platform. However, the response to critics wasn’t enough for many on the left. 

Left-wing CNN pundit Brian Stelter quickly complained that Americans trust Rogan more than "newsroom like CNN" that "work hard" to verifying COVID information. 

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"Because figures like Rogan are trusted by people that don’t trust real newsrooms, we have a tension, a problem, that’s much bigger than Spotify. Much bigger than any single platform," Stelter said. 

ABC’s Behar also said she was "disappointed" that more musicians and singers didn't pull their content from Spotify in protest of Rogan.

"This would have been a good opportunity to show what you believe in, and I didn't see it. I only saw two people from the 60s and 70s. Let's see some young people do it. Let's see Taylor and those guys take a stand," Behar said, appearing to reference Taylor Swift.

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The far-left Daily Beast published a story headlined, "Joe Rogan: Moron or... Moron?"

The hosts of "CBS Mornings" piled on Rogan as host Tony Dokoupil acknowledged "these musicians are not going to win this battle," but appeared to express solidarity with them.

"You have a First Amendment right to say what you want. You don't have a First Amendment right to appear on a platform as large as Spotify. That's the issue," Dokoupil said. "Joe Rogan is correct that the medical world gets stuff wrong, but there's a process by which the medical world corrects itself, and that process is not interviewing guys on the fringe of the medical world on your massive platform. That's called irresponsible. It’s not censorship." 

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"Editors are not censors, they're ensuring quality," Dokoupil added.

Co-host Gayle King then chimed in, suggesting the solution to combat Rogan isn't simply to just "turn it off."

"The thing is, a lot of people do listen to it, and they're getting false, incorrect information and that's why it seems so dangerous," King said. 

"He has a huge reach. He has a huge reach," co-host Nate Burleson emphasized. 

"And it matters," Dokoupil said, later adding, "it's a life or death issue. That’s why it’s in a special category."

The Today in Tabs newsletter declared that Rogan sells "bulls—t" and accused him of spouting "COVID misinformation" in his video. 

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Journalist Glenn Greenwald, a frequent critic of corporate press, blasted "smug media figures" who continue to condemn Rogan. 

"The way so many smug media figures are uniting in condescending denunciation of Joe Rogan serves the same purpose as when they do it toward Trump: it's to whitewashes all the radical flaws in establishment journalism by letting them scorn someone to whom they all feel superior," he tweeted. 

Fox News’ David Rutz, Edmund DeMarche, Brandon Gillespie and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.