> JR is deceptive not because everything he says taken in isolation is false
I understand at what you are getting at, words at face value don't mean much, context is everything. However, listening to JR I never get a feeling that I'm being intentionally deceived.
The falsehoods he believes seem to me to be a genuine lack of awareness on his parts, the fact that he changes opinions when confronted with the fact what he said was bullshit gives me trust that he is not out to deceive me.
If he's framing X doctor as best in the field because of Y achievements is because the average Joe would also believe that as well. And the fact that he has corrected some statements made by the past two controversial guests, regarding Covid, is the reason why I trust he's not deceiving with some agenda. Unlike with most mainstream media where I am always trying to figure out the underlying agenda of every statement made from the hosts.
I have no idea if JR is intentionally deceptive, or merely deluded. I think that kind of stuff is often something of a grey area anyhow; I mean part of being able to convince people of things is to be able to come up with a narrative that sounds convincing to yourself. It's perfectly plausible to me, at least, that he's convinced himself of things that aren't reasonable, that he may at one point have doubted, but now thinks are at least plausible because he's so embedded himself and his persona in the notion that alternative explanations must be reasonable. In any case, whether confused, delusional, honestly misinformed, intentionally exaggerating, intentionally misleading - or some combination thereof - he can still be deceiving his listeners.
As to an agenda: he has clear monetary and reputational motives for coming up with controversial guests and perspectives. People _like_ acquiring followers, and he's even being paid to do so. There's no need for anything as crude as an outright payment by some snake-oil salesperson to cause a conflict of interest, fame and fortune are quite he incentives by themselves - and here too, people can convince themselves they're onto something (and do so entirely honestly!) when they get this kind of positive feedback - even if it's nonsense.
If you believe that Joe's motives are any more pure than those of mainstream-media hosts, you're wearing rose-tinted glasses. Also, he is a mainstream media host. He's just a deceptive one, that's all. If anything, most mainstream media hosts have _fewer_ incentives to lie; after all, they tend not to simultaneously be media owners nor to rake in quite as much cash as he does, though surely there are exceptions. Also, the mere fact that other media tends to involve a much greater back-office makes it slightly harder to go off the deep end - your colleagues may sometimes say things to burst your (potentially honest) self-deceptive bubble.
That is an understatement.
> JR is deceptive not because everything he says taken in isolation is false
I understand at what you are getting at, words at face value don't mean much, context is everything. However, listening to JR I never get a feeling that I'm being intentionally deceived.
The falsehoods he believes seem to me to be a genuine lack of awareness on his parts, the fact that he changes opinions when confronted with the fact what he said was bullshit gives me trust that he is not out to deceive me.
If he's framing X doctor as best in the field because of Y achievements is because the average Joe would also believe that as well. And the fact that he has corrected some statements made by the past two controversial guests, regarding Covid, is the reason why I trust he's not deceiving with some agenda. Unlike with most mainstream media where I am always trying to figure out the underlying agenda of every statement made from the hosts.