TALKERS publisher Michael Harrison stated, “Although it has been many years in the making, this past Friday’s (10/25) three-hour appearance by former President Donald Trump on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast will take its place in communications history as the singular event that clearly symbolized, beyond a shadow of doubt, the realignment of platform influence in the hierarchy of the talk media universe.” 
At the Monday morning (10/28) TALKERS editorial meeting, Harrison said, “The hoopla over this podcast appearance and its enormous profile within election news coverage clearly indicates we have arrived at a point where the terms ‘mainstream,’ ‘legacy,’ ‘alternative,’ ‘grassroots,’ and the like have to be reevaluated in conveying impact and importance – both individually, and certainly collectively – in the marketplace of ideas and the industries that serve it.” Harrison added, “This is especially true of Rogan’s individual impact as indicated by 1) the deference he was paid by a former president and major party candidate in showing up three-hours late for a live rally attended by thousands in which he actually implied that this podcast interview was a priority and more important to ‘winning’ than arriving on time for the event; 2) the tsunami of news coverage this podcast generated; 3) the passive aggressive irreverence granted a somewhat oblivious Trump by Rogan both during and following the interview; and 4) the sheer enormity of Rogan’s raw numbers on Spotify and YouTube, unfettered by FCC regulation.”
