CNN defiant against Joe Rogan defamation accusations, only guilty of 'bruising' star's ego, as WaPo slams network's 'advocacy'

CNN is remaining defiant against accusations from Joe Rogan that they lied about his Covid-19 recovery and use of the medication ivermectin, with the network saying they are only guilty of bruising the podcaster’s ego.

CNN’s public relations department made the bold statement to the Washington Post’s media critic, Erik Wemple, on Thursday in order to bolster the network’s defense against Rogan.

According to CNN, Rogan “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.”

CNN’s statement made clear that it still sees nothing wrong in their coverage.

"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."

The trouble with CNN’s statement is it echoes the very coverage at issue, which even the Washington Post admitted was not “a sober recitation of the facts” by “multiple” CNN anchors who first reported on Rogan’s Covid-19 illness and the hodgepodge of medicines he said he was taking to combat it, including ivermectin. 

The drug was repeatedly framed on CNN merely as a “horse dewormer,” but as Rogan and others have said, it is a versatile drug with versions that are also used on people to combat various illnesses. 

Rogan recently spoke to CNN medical expert Dr. Sanjay Gupta on his podcast, where even Gupta acknowledged it was wrong for his network to describe ivermectin as simply a ‘horse dewormer’. Rogan, meanwhile, accused the network of knowingly lying for political purposes to make him look bad. 

While the Post’s Wemple claims CNN makes “some good points” in their statement and acknowledges that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend ivermectin specifically for Covid-19, he also said that CNN’s statement “sounds more like the work of an advocacy group than a journalism outfit.” 

Many on social media also saw through CNN’s wordy defense, including journalist Glenn Greenwald.

“Without saying it explicitly, this WashPost column by their media reporter documents that (a) CNN lied about Joe Rogan yet (b) defended its lies and refused to retract them or even correct them,” Greenwald tweeted, added that such behaviour “conflicts with CNN’s professed role as warriors against disinformation.”

“CNN’s position is that, because Joe Rogan dispensed irresponsible advice, they don’t have an obligation to cover him accurately,” pundit Josh Barro added, labeling the left-leaning network “embarrassing.”

Some even encouraged Rogan to use the statement as the final reason to actually sue the network, which he had threatened in the past.

CNN has remained defiant in their coverage of Rogan. Shortly after appearing on Rogan’s popular podcast, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, Gupta appeared on CNN with Don Lemon, where Lemon defended describing ivermectin as a horse dewormer and said “it’s not a lie” to describe it as such. Gupta did not exactly mount the defense he promised he would on the podcast, simply acknowledging that there is no evidence the drug works against Covid-19.

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