ABC chairman Kim Williams has launched an extraordinary attack on American podcaster Joe Rogan, claiming the globally successful podcast host “preys on people’s vulnerability”.
Williams made the comments while speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
ABC journalist Jane Norman asked him how the national broadcaster could get an audience similar to Rogan’s.
“I am not a consumer or enthusiast of Mr. Rogan and his work,” Mr. Williams said.
‘I think people like Mr. Rogan take advantage of people’s vulnerabilities. They take advantage of fear. They take advantage of anxiety.
“They take advantage of all the elements that contribute to uncertainty in society and consider the results of fantasy and conspiracy to be a normal part of the social narrative.”
He even went so far as to say that he found Rogan’s reach in the United States “deeply repulsive.”
“I am also absolutely appalled that this could be a source of public entertainment, when in reality it is treating the public as loot for purposes that are actually quite malevolent.”
ABC president Kim Williams has launched an extraordinary attack on Joe Rogan, claiming the globally successful podcast host “preys on people’s vulnerability.”
The Joe Rogan Experience is Spotify’s most popular podcast with 14.5 million followers.
Rogan signed a $100 million deal with the streaming giant in 2020.
Williams’ comments come after Rogan told his audience that he would not move to Australia because the country put people in “concentration camps” for “a cold” during Covid lockdowns.
During the Covid pandemic, Australia quarantined people arriving into the country for weeks before they could enter the community.
Most were placed in hotels, but some were also housed in temporary isolation camps.
Australia’s national specialist quarantine facility, Howard Springs, outside Darwin, took in about 64,000 people for a two-week mandatory isolation period.
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