The high-profile U.S. Podcaster/Broadcaster Joe Rogan of ‘The Joe Rogan Experience‘ has attempted to ease the controversy over his much listened to podcast, hours after the streaming service Spotify announced a plan to tackle the spread of Covid-19 misinformation.
In a 10-minute video posted to Instagram on Sunday night, the comedian and host pledged to “try harder to get people with differing opinions on” and “do my best to make sure I’ve researched these topics”.
He defended two recent episodes where guests who shared Covid conspiracy theories “A lot of people … have a distorted perception of what I do.”
He called these guests “highly credentialed … people [with] an opinion that’s different from the mainstream narrative.”
Rogan’s podcast, reaches an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, he says is casual conversation which has grown and grown.
“It’s become what it is today, which is some out of control juggernaut that I barely have control of” he said .
“I am gonna do my best in the future to balance things out.”
He also apologised to Spotify. “I want to thank Spotify for being so supportive during this time, and I’m very sorry that this is happening to them and that they’re taking so much from it.”
The episodes sparked a fresh round of furore, including from musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who pulled their music from Spotify as a result.
Chief executive of Spotify, Daniel Ek, released an official statement setting out the streaming platform’s plan to tackle misinformation, as more users publicly unsubscribed from the service, more musicians withdrew their music and the company lost billions of dollars in market value.
