On podcasts and radio, misleading virus talk goes unchecked
On a recent episode of his podcast, Rick Wiles, a pastor and self-described “citizen reporter,” endorsed a conspiracy theory: that COVID-19 vaccines were the product of a “global coup d’etat by the most evil cabal of people in the history of mankind.”
“It’s an egg that hatches into a synthetic parasite and grows inside your body,” Mr. Wiles said on his Oct. 13 episode. “This is like a sci-fi nightmare, and it’s happening in front of us.”
Mr. Wiles belongs to a group of hosts who have made false or misleading statements about COVID-19 and effective treatments for it. Like many of them, he has access to much of his listening audience because his show appears on a platform provided by a large media corporation.
Mr. Wiles’ podcast is available through iHeart Media, an audio company based in San Antonio that says it reaches nine out of 10 Americans each month. Spotify and Apple are other major companies that provide significant audio platforms for hosts who have shared similar views about COVID-19 and vaccination efforts, or have had guests on their shows who promoted such notions.
Scientific studies have shown that vaccines will protect people against the coronavirus for long periods and have significantly reduced the spread of COVID-19. As the global death toll related to COVID-19 exceeds 5 million — and at a time when more than 40% of Americans are not fully vaccinated — iHeart, Spotify, Apple and many smaller audio companies have done little to rein in what radio hosts and podcasters say about the virus and vaccination efforts.
“There’s really no curb on it,” said Jason Loviglio, an associate professor of media and communication studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “There’s no real mechanism to push back, other than advertisers boycotting and corporate executives saying we needa culture change.”
Audio industry executives appear less likely than their counterparts in social media to try to check dangerous speech. TruNews, a conservative Christian media outlet founded by Mr. Wiles, who used the phrase “Jew coup” to describe efforts to impeach former President Donald Trump, has been banned by YouTube. His podcast remains available on iHeart.
Asked about his false statements concerning COVID-19 vaccines, Mr. Wiles described pandemic mitigation efforts as “global communism.” “If the Needle Nazis win, freedom is over for generations, maybe forever,” he saidin an email.
The reach of radio shows and podcasts is great, especially among young people: A recent survey from the National Research Group, a consulting firm, found that 60% of listeners younger than 40 get their news primarily through audio, a type of media they say they trust more thanprint or video.
“People develop really close relationships with podcasts,” said Evelyn Douek, a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute.
Marc Bernier, a talk radio host in Daytona Beach, Fla., whose show is available for download or streaming on iHeart’s and Apple’s digital platforms, was among the talk radio hosts who died of COVID-19 complications after expressing anti-vaccination views on their programs. The deaths made national news and set off a cascade of commentaryon social media. What drew less attention was the industry that helped give theman audience.
On a June episode, Mr. Bernier said, after referring to unvaccinated people: “I’m one of them. Judge me if you want.”In his final Twitter post, on July 30, Mr. Bernier accused the government of “acting like Nazis” for encouraging COVID-19 vaccines.
Jimmy DeYoung Sr., whose program was available on iHeart, Apple and Spotify, died of COVID-19 complications after making his show a venue for false or misleading statements about vaccines. One of his frequent guests was Sam Rohrer, a former Pennsylvania state representative who likened the promotion of COVID-19 vaccines to Nazi tactics and made a sweeping false statement. “This is not a vaccine, by definition,” Mr. Rohrer saidon an April episode. “It is a permanent altering of my immune system, which God created to handle the kinds of things that are coming that way.” DeYoung thanked his guest for his “insight.” DeYoung died four months later.
Buck Sexton, host of a program syndicated by Premiere Networks, an iHeart subsidiary, recently floated the theory that mass COVID19 vaccinations could speed thevirus’ mutation into more dangerous strains. He made this suggestion while appearing on another Premiere Networks program, “The Jesse KellyShow.”
The theory appears to have its roots in a 2015 paper about vaccines for a chicken ailment called Marek’s disease. Its author, Andrew Read, a professor of biology and entomology at Penn State University, has said his research has been “misinterpreted” by anti-vaccine activists. He added that COVID-19 vaccines have been found to reduce transmissions substantially, whereas chickens inoculated with the Marek’s disease vaccine were still ableto transmit the disease.
“We’reseeing lots of public radio stations doing amazing local work to spread good health information,” Mr. Loviglio said. “On the other side, you’re seeing mostly the AM radio dial and their podcast counterparts being the WildWest of the airwaves.”
iHeart — which owns more than 860 radio stations, publishes more than 600 podcasts and operates a vast online archive of audio programs — has rules for the podcasters on its platform prohibiting them from making statements that incite hate, promote Nazi propaganda or are defamatory. It would not say whether it has a policy concerning false statements on COVID-19 or vaccination efforts.
Apple’s content guidelines for podcasts prohibit “content that may lead to harmful or dangerous outcomes, or content that is obscene or gratuitous.” Apple did not reply to requests for comment for this article.
Spotify, which says its podcast platform has 299 million monthly listeners, prohibits hate speech in its guidelines. In a response to inquiries, the company said in a written statement that it also prohibits content “that promotes dangerous false or dangerous deceptive content about COVID-19, which may cause offline harm and/or pose a direct threat to public health.” The company added that it had removed content that violated its policies. But the episode with DeYoung’s conversation with Mr. Rohrer was still available via Spotify.