Common Sense, Episode 61: Leading Lady
In which I weigh in on the Joe Rogan controversy and then interview Shiloh Burgess, the most recent director of the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce
I recently decided to post the monologue transcript for Common Sense, my show on NCWLIFE, and the source notes here on Substack. The reason for that is because NCWLIFE doesn’t post transcripts or sources on its pages for other shows. In media continuity in style is everything, so the powers that be at NCWLIFE and I agreed that it would be best if I embedded the video file from NCWLIFE’s YouTube channel here with the sources I cite and the words I write.
So I’m going to start doing that here on Substack each week. And here’s the first ep, featuring Joe Rogan and Shiloh Burgess. Something to note is that I’m writing for broadcast in these teleprompter scripts, and not for the page. So there will definitely be errors and the copy will not be up to the standards of AP style, which is usually what I strive for in my copy.
Intro:
Hello and welcome to episode 61 of Common Sense, I’m Dominick Bonny and in this episode, we’re going to learn about Shiloh Burgess who, until recently, was the executive director of the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce. We’re going to talk about what she learned during her time at the helm of the Chamber, as well as some of her achievements and some of the challenges she faced during her time as Chamber director. But first I want to briefly mention the ongoing controversy surrounding the massively popular podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan. As I’m sure you’ve already heard Covid misinformation spread via Rogan’s podcast, which Spotify paid 100 million dollars for the exclusive distribution rights for, led some musicians, like Neil Young and Joni Michell to remove their music from the platform in protest. Others, like India Arie, removed their music in protest of Rogan’s use of an extremely offensive racial slur on other episodes. Joe is having a rough go of it, facing criticism on many sides, but I’m sure that $100 million is a pretty effective balm for any irritation he may be feeling at present. Not the reason I bring it up isn’t because it’s the most important story in the world right now. That’s the situation happening on the borders of Ukraine, as Russian troops prepare for a possible invasion. The Rogan thing isn’t even the most important story in domestic news. That’s the fact that allies of former president Trump urged him to order the Department of Homeland security to seize voting machines as a part of a desperate bid to overturn the 2020 election. The only thing that’s more nuts than how close we came to the full-on subversion and overthrow of our democracy in the last election is the fact that very few Americans seem to care. No the reason I bring up Joe Rogan is because one of the main themes of this show has been to fight dis and misinformation. And there’s a lot of that happening over at the Joe Rogan Experience. His sometimes four-hour, rambling, pot-fueled stream of consciousness style interviews at times veer into some weird and wild places – but they still have real world impacts. Like the time Joe got Elon Musk stoned and rambling about his childhood and how his brain is different and the next day Tesla investors panicked, tanking the stock price and leading to the board considering removing Musk from his role as CEO. But it’s when The Joe Rogan Experience collides with a global pandemic that it creates problems for the rest of us. See, if Rogan just wanted to have guys on who believe that aliens built the pyramids or that doing Ayahuasca in the jungle is the path to enlightenment that would be one thing. But when you have people like Dr. Robert Malone on, a guy who according to NPR quote “made baseless and disproven claims, including falsely stating that getting vaccinated puts people who already have had COVID-19 at higher risk,” it becomes a problem for all of us. The junk science Malone trotted out on that episode, including making unproven claims that the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin is an advisable treatment for Covid-19, led to an explosion of misinformation online. It made such an impact that a group of more than a thousand doctors, scientists and health professionals signed an open letter to Spotify about the episode. One of those medical professionals is a woman named Katrine Wallace. She’s an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Public Health, and she told NPR received hundreds of messages from followers after Rogan’s interview. She said quote "Their friends and family were sending it to them as evidence that the vaccines are dangerous and that they shouldn't get it. It provides a sense of false balance, like there's two sides to the scientific evidence when, really, there is not. The overwhelming evidence is that the vaccines are safe and that they're effective." endquote. That’s the problem, the false balance. It’s the why the tobacco industry paid their own “experts” to manufacture junk science reports that downplayed the link between smoking and cancer. They knew it causes cancer, but they paid researchers and doctors to muddy the water with industry commissioned reports that gave folks who wanted to keep smoking the level of doubt they needed to ignore the facts and keep puffing away. There were not two sides to that issue. Smoking leads to higher cancer rates. That’s a fact. You can have your opinion that it doesn’t, you can believe in your heart of hearts that it actually makes you strong and smart, but that will not stop cancer from doing its thing. Rogan and his guests like Malone are essentially doing the same thing the tobacco industry did back in the day. They are telling folks who have a confirmation bias what they want to hear, which makes them feel better about their decisions to avoid or refuse safe, free and effective vaccines for a disease that has caused nearly a million American deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. And Rogan is making a lot of money platforming guys like Malone, who is considered to be a dangerous crackpot by many of his peers in the medical community. Many of his listeners and fans say they like Rogan because he’s just like them. He doesn’t talk down to them, or judge them, he just gives them what they want. But he’s not like his listeners, unless all his listeners have a hundred million dollars, which I seriously doubt. Joe Rogan is not an everyman, he’s a comedian who made his big break hosting a show where people ate bugs to win money and now he makes millions smoking pot with Elon Musk and platforming misinformation spreading quacks. Rogan himself has even admitted he doesn’t know what he’s talking about half the time, saying quote, “I am an idiot.” So the real question is why don’t some people take him at his word? Plenty of time for pushing back on misinformation later though. Now let’s go to the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce and hear from Shiloh Burgess, who recently moved on after a long and successful tenure as its executive director.
Interview segment I
Stay tuned after the break for more!
Commercial break
Welcome back! Let’s get right back to me interview with Shiloh Burgess, who recently moved on after a long and successful tenure as the executive director of the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Interview segment II
I’d like to thank Shiloh for joining me as my guest for this episode. In my capacity as a marketing strategist and content creator, I have had the pleasure of working with and for the Chamber of Commerce and the Visit Wenatchee brand for many years now and I can speak with firsthand experience to her effectiveness as a leader and her commitment to our community – to EVERYONE in our community. Our community is lucky to have leaders like Shiloh in it, and in a time when it seems like our divisions are what define us we need people like Shiloh who can bring people together and focus on common causes. Shiloh might lean a little more right than I do, but that’s ok because she respects others and knows how to build goal-oriented coalitions. She is an old school conservative focused on getting things done rather than fighting pointless culture wars that benefit no one. Shiloh, and people like her, are the leaders we need now and in the future. That’s all for this episode. I’m Dominick Bonny. Join me next time for more Common Sense.
Sources:
Read the emails showing Trump allies’ connections to voting machine seizure push, Politico: https://politi.co/3ssbKi4
What the Joe Rogan podcast controversy says about the online misinformation ecosystem, NPR: https://n.pr/33fRF67
The Saga of Joe Rogan, The Daily: https://nyti.ms/3BihKy4
COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review, CDC: https://bit.ly/3GKuGNW