Earlier this year, the journalist Douglas Murray and the comedian Dave Smith quarreled on the world’s most popular podcast about the role of expertise in public discourse, an argument that became a flashpoint in a wide-ranging debate about alternative media.

On “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Murray, a veteran reporter, argued that experts should receive a primary platform in public dialogue. Smith, who has made a name voicing his libertarian geopolitical worldview on podcasts, YouTube videos, Twitch streams and other forms of non-legacy media, disparaged experts and argued that everyone should have an equal voice.

“I’m a free American. I can talk about what I like to,” Smith said. “The expert class hasn’t done a great job.”

“Everyone is free to air their views, but it does not mean that everyone who sounds off on an issue, whether it’s World War II, the war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, has an equally valid point of view,” Murray said.

One of the listeners, a history buff, found himself “infuriated” by the whole debate and decided the best way to combat the influencers’ discourse was to meet them on their own turf — long-form podcasts. His nascent show, “Crackpot History,” appears to be the first podcast dedicated to combating historical revisionism on other podcasts.

The new show is part of an evolution that has seen podcasts, livestreaming videos, Substack and other forms of what is termed alternative media increasingly challenge traditional platforms like legacy news outlets. In both realms, the conversation often centers on Israel and Jews.

“It ignited the internet on fire and it was this whole experts versus influencers debate, and the influencers are just running circles around everybody else,” the “Crackpot History” host said of the Smith-Murray debate. “They’re just weaponizing a narrative and ahistoricity and that was the main motivation for this.”

The podcaster, whose first show focuses on the history of Zionism, declined to share his identity publicly because he fears retribution from the “pretty toxic” influencers he criticizes. His anonymity also plays into his approach on the show, focusing on the arguments and avoiding ad hominem attacks.

“They always say, ‘Focus on the argument. Tell me where I’m wrong,’” he told The Times of Israel in an interview. “The only way to really do that is to confront them in the same way that they make their words heard.”

“It has to be long form, it has to be uninterrupted, it has to focus on the details,” he said.

One of the central figures in the Smith-Murray debate was the amateur historian Darryl Cooper, a popular podcaster known for empathizing with history’s bad guys, including Nazi-era Germany. Smith and Rogan, both fans of Cooper, defended him, while Murray accused Cooper of propagating discredited Holocaust denialism.

Cooper launched his podcast with a history of Zionism in 2015. He has said he was inspired by the war against Hamas in Gaza the previous year. He is critical of Zionism, calling the movement a “psychopathology” and a “particularly virulent and dangerous kind of nationalism,” and is hostile to modern Israel, saying Israelis “take joy and satisfaction” in killing.

“Crackpot History” launched in April with a defense of expertise, warning that for many, anti-establishment influencers were seen as more credible than actual experts. The following episodes track Cooper’s history of Zionism, point by point, giving Cooper credit when he got it right and pointing out his shortcomings, similar to peer review for professionals.

The opening episode said, for example, that Cooper omitted sections of the founding charter of the early Zionist group Bilu while quoting the document to argue that the conflict was political and caused by Zionism, not ethnic or religious. It also noted that Bilu was a minor group and that Cooper elided anti-Jewish violence in the Arab world in the 19th century.

Fact-checking Cooper is a lengthy process; his series on the history of Zionism is more than 20 hours long. The host of Crackpot History listens to an episode, takes notes, and compares those notes........

© The Times of Israel