The Problem with Alt. Media

I.

Dave Smith is a comedian and podcaster who has managed to become one of the most prominent political voices in alternative media. He’s appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience thirteen times since 2020, and his political views—especially his contempt for establishment liberals and criticisms of US and Israeli foreign policy—have attracted a huge following there. Smith’s popularity (he has 830,000 followers on X) reflects a general shift away from mainstream media and expertise, and he has been at the centre of several controversies revolving around this shift.

His April 2025 encounter with conservative journalist and pundit Douglas Murray on Rogan’s podcast served as a bellwether for an intensifying debate over journalistic and intellectual standards in the podcast era. At the beginning of the conversation, Murray criticised podcasters like Smith, the conspiracist Ian Carroll, and revisionist amateur historian Darryl Cooper (who has described Winston Churchill as the “chief villain of the Second World War”) for pronouncing on subjects in which they have no formal training.

But while Murray was right to criticise Rogan for platforming cranks and failing to fact-check them effectively (or at all), he was too quick to dismiss Smith for failing to meet certain thresholds of expertise and experience. Murray objected to Smith spending so much time discussing Israel’s war in Gaza by saying: “It’s a bit weird to be simultaneously saying, ‘I’m not an expert on a conflict’ and talking about it everywhere.” Smith responded by accusing Murray of being “anti-democratic” and “elitist” (an argument that was sure to land with Rogan’s populist audience).

The viral moment of the conversation arrived when Murray gasped with incredulity when Smith acknowledged that he had never been to Israel or Gaza: “If you’re going to spend a year and a half talking about a place,” Murray instructed scornfully, “you should at least do the courtesy of visiting it.” Smith pointed out that this was just a sneer, not an argument, and Murray’s criticisms of Smith seemed to confirm the belief—common in the alternative media—that the establishment resorts to smears and condescending dismissals like these because it can’t handle difficult truths. That moment was not representative of the entire conversation—Murray made some strong points about the Russian war in Ukraine, which Smith seems to think NATO caused—but it’s the moment that will probably be remembered.