It’s the algorithms, stupid: why Karl Stefanovic followed Joe Rogan in building on our worst instincts | Ed Coper

. AU edition

Karl Stefanovic
Karl Stefanovic ‘saw the road ahead and headed for a world controlled not by editors and advertisers but by algorithms and engagement’, writes Ed Coper. Photograph: Don Arnold/WireImage

Day after day, people are forging lucrative careers just by picking up a microphone and camera and calling it news. What can we do about it?

Pity the careers adviser for journalism students these days. In 2026 as a journalist you are more likely than in any other period to be laid off, replaced by AI or, worse, killed for doing your job. Lucky enough to escape those fates? Prepare to be paid less for doing more.

Don’t get me wrong: the business of getting information out there to the masses is booming like never before. Day after day, people are forging lucrative careers just by picking up a microphone and camera and calling it news. It just sucks to be in the business of quality information.

That makes career advice startlingly easy: abandon any altruistic motives attached to the news industry and instead join the creator economy. That’s the one where you make content on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube, talking directly to your subscribers unburdened by a traditional newsroom and all those pesky standards that came with it.

There’s one person who gets this better than anyone: Karl Stefanovic. He’s read the tea leaves and abandoned the newsdesk suit and tie for the T-shirt and thongs of the podcast studio. He saw the road ahead and headed for the golden pastures of a world controlled not by editors and advertisers but by algorithms and engagement.

And in his defection, we can learn all we need to know about the differences between these worlds. We have seen both Karls and the difference is stark. One appealed to our rational thought processes; the other is out to game platforms built to engage our worst instincts.

TV Karl was governed by TV incentives. Podcast Karl is governed by social media incentives. On Today he espoused mainstream opinions within the bounds of socially acceptable commentary. On The Karl Stefanovic Show he looks lovingly into the eyes of the UK’s most notorious far-right extremist and fawns “God I love ya”. You spot the difference.

On social media, you need to be extreme to be heard. The more contrarian, the more visible. The more outrageous, the more interesting.

In order to build a social media news empire, Karl has to win the algorithm. This means replicating others who have provided the template: fringe opinions wrapped in culture war attacks on political correctness. Even if he doesn’t actually hold those opinions, it is the algorithm that has determined they are his path to success.

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And that path is well trodden. Megyn Kelly, once a darling of the Fox News juggernaut, embraced this evolution explicitly when she leapt from the traditional to the creator ecosystem. The Megyn Kelly Show now has more than 4 million subscribers on YouTube.

Candace Owens, a conspiracy-­theorist who makes Maga look mainstream, now regularly has more people watching her on YouTube than Fox News, CNN and MSNBC combined.

Joe Rogan platforms fringe ideas and problematic guests under the guise of “just asking questions” in his rambling, informal, unscripted, hours-­long interviews. His 2024 Spotify deal was reportedly worth about $US250m.

The rise of creator media has been a boon for those who peddle bullshit, as bias and bullshit are core features of what wins our attention on social media.

It turns out that when you migrate our entire news media ecosystem on to platforms that map on to our emotional wiring, you are inadvertently building Karl’s podcast. To be successful in this attention economy, the platforms have decided that anger, outrage and controversy rules. That negative attention counts as much as positive engagement. That one must act like a cancelled free speech warrior, even when one may not be. In other words, it’s the algorithms, stupid.

What can we do about this? Restore quality information systems urgently. The good news is, you are doing it right now. Quality news has never been more important but it is struggling to compete in the doomscroll apocalypse. You need to support those who are making it and the outlets that deliver it.

We also need to fix the incentives that have led Karl down the Rogan path. That means using regulations to make the platforms more suitable as our town squares. Perhaps if they had rewards for consensus, facts and balance, we would be instead discussing Karl, Australia’s latest sage-baiter.