My Letter to the LA Times About Its Joe Rogan Coverage
It's a problem when journalists cry "misinformation" without backing it up
There’s much to criticize about the LA Times’ coverage of the pandemic.
I recently read an LA Times article “Why Spotify picked Joe Rogan over Neil Young in its misinformation fight” and I picked up the logical problems immediately.
It bothered me enough such that I found the emails of the writers and I penned the following letter to them:
Dear Wendy and Matt:
I enjoyed reading your recent article, "Why Spotify picked Joe Rogan over Neil Young in its misinformation fight," and I thought it fair and balanced. That said, I wanted to share some follow-up thoughts.
Having watched the Joe Rogan interviews with Malone and McCullough, I can say that the interview was an intellectual and insightful one. Still, I am having difficulty ascertaining why the "misinformation" label is applied to this content.
I read your article a few times, and I had difficulty discerning this misinformation. Unfortunately, it seems to me that your article assumes this label without actually stating what exactly this misinformation is.
For example, the following facts are indisputable:
1) Young people, especially children, have a meager infection fatality rate for COVID.
2) There are mounting vaccine injury cases for the COVID vaccines (20,000+ deaths in VAERS).
3) A sudden increase in myocarditis in children as soon as COVID vaccines were okayed for them.
4) Public health authorities have downplayed COVID early treatments in 2020 in favor of the vaccine.
I find the criticisms of medicine by Rogan's guests to be fair and accurate. Even the label "mass-formation psychosis" refers to the psychological principle of groupthink, and it is helpful to explain why many doctors adopt CDC guidelines without question.
Groupthink applies in journalism too. It is easy to jump aboard the label of misinformation just because it is politically convenient or serves government interests.
It is the purview of good journalism to question these assumptions, especially when it involves using government power on the people.
The people's primary concerns are the intrusion of corporate power into government institutions, especially that of public health. Therefore, the questioning of authority by media is essential to a functioning democracy.
I hope that the LA Times serves the spirit of good journalism and service to the people by applying the same standards of investigative journalism to the critics of government policy and the government institutions and public health officials themselves.