Washington Post Media Critic Rips CNN’s Response to Joe Rogan’s Criticism: Sounds More Like an ‘Advocacy Group Than a Journalism Outfit’

On Thursday, CNN issued a statement responding to critique of the network made by Joe Rogan on his podcast to guest Sanjay Gupta, who is CNN’s chief medical analyst. Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple was less than impressed with the network’s response.

At issue is an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience in which the host, who announced in September he tested positive for Covid-19 and took ivermectin (among other unproven treatments), took issue with CNN’s characterization of the drug.

Ivermectin is an anti-parasite drug which can be prescribed to humans, and also to livestock and pets as a dewormer. “CNN is saying I’m taking horse dewormer,” Rogan told Gupta. “They must know that’s a lie.”

As Wemple noted in a column sharing CNN’s statement, several personalities at the network played up ivermectin’s role as an animal dewormer.

“By highlighting that ivermectin is a horse dewormer, and downplaying that ivermectin has important uses for people, CNN facilitates a certain assumption among its viewers,” Wemple wrote. “Namely, that Rogan had been haunting the aisles of Tractor Supply.”

The network’s statement read:

The heart of this debate has been purposely confused and ultimately lost. It’s never been about livestock versus human dosage of Ivermectin. The issue is that a powerful voice in the media, who by example and through his platform, sowed doubt in the proven and approved science of vaccines while promoting the use of an unproven treatment for covid-19 — a drug developed to ward off parasites in farm animals. The only thing CNN did wrong here was bruise the ego of a popular podcaster who pushed dangerous conspiracy theories and risked the lives of millions of people in doing so.

“That’s quite the statement, and it makes some good points,” Wemple reacted. “Though ivermectin is used for scabies and river blindness and the like, the Food and Drug Administration advises against its use for covid, saying that existing data ‘do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19.’ Doctors have been prescribing it for covid in any case, and some people have sought the drug from veterinary suppliers.”

He said CNN is correct to point out that Rogan has made irresponsible comments about Covid-19 vaccines and ivermectin.

However, Wemple said this isn’t the problem in the current context.

“Yet CNN’s statement sounds more like the work of an advocacy group than a journalism outfit,” he wrote. “The ‘issue,’ actually, begins and ends with the integrity of CNN’s content. If we take Rogan’s prescription claim at face value — and CNN hasn’t challenged it — then the network’s coverage was slanted in some cases and straight-up incorrect in others.”

Wemple cited a poison control expert who told him via email, “[I]f you’re prescribed the FDA human version [of ivermectin] then you’re not taking a horse pill.”

“So in this instance, you don’t have to endorse Rogan to abhor CNN’s coverage of this topic,” concluded Wemple. “Here’s a network, after all, that prides itself on impeccable factual hygiene, a place where there’s no conceptual hair too fine to split, no political statement too sprawling to flyspeck. It’s tough living by your own standards. If CNN wants to describe ivermectin in a way that doesn’t slime the people who take it, the Guardian provides a fine template ‘a drug used against parasites in humans and livestock.'”