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Trump is going on Rogan because it's Trump on Rogan. CNN and the New York Times can only dream of having the sort of veiwership, and cross-cultural appeal that The Joe Rogan Experience enjoys. Trump is going on JRE for the same reason that Obama went on Oprah, unless he completely stuffs it (which he is presumably confident that he wont) there is little to lose and a great deal to gain.
What you're effectively saying is that you find it "puzzling" that a reality TV star would participate in what is likely to be the media event of the season. Think about that for a bit.
Events like this are just another nail in the coffin for the mainstream media. Could you imagine a single man having more political influence and ability to be a 'kingmaker' than an entire news network a couple of decades ago? Just amazing.
But society does need genuinely trustworthy, credible institutions. Trumps has been going on mostly comedy podcasts. They might be bigger and better than the dying MSM, but they're not a solution for what is needed.
I'm not so sure about that. Most millennials and zoomers grew up on 'comedy politics' as their primary method of political indoctrination in high school through college, be it "last week tonight" with John Oliver, 'The Colbert Report' with Stephan Colbert, 'The Daily Show' with John Stewart, etc. Political comedy has been around for the past 70 years and has been an important part of at least informing, if not indoctrinating, the past few generations.
Those were comedy politics shows written and produced by teams of people that covered politics. These are podcasts hosted by stand up comics who just talk to people extemporaneously about whatever. It'd still be a valuable cultural commodity if people could open the NYT, or WaPo, or watch CNN or Fox News, and go "yeah, that's probably true enough".
Where do comedy podcasters get their discussion topics? When Joe Rogan goes 'Jamie, look that up' where do you think Jamie gets his links? All podcasters did is eliminate the middlemen of a team of writers between the personality and the news.
As I said, its clearly an extemporaneous conversation. They shoot the shit with their guests. They warn listeners repeated not to get their info from them. They have no pretense about being news or doing research. Its just stand up comics shooting the shit and occasionally googling things, often for as little as 30 seconds. This is what makes them enjoyable. I like the format. I listen to them all the time. The real novelty (and value add imo) is the long format and lack of editing. Its awesome. In some ways I find them more illuminating and informational than short news segments. But they're distinct from comedy news shows which have production budgets and teams given at least a week to craft a narrative and write a (hopefully) comedic script.
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