Yeah as much as I like Joe Rogan's show (or at least I did before it moved to Spotify), I never thought of it as something I "trusted", or even something that would be comparable to a news program. Maybe I trusted that it was less fake and not as staged as most news, but it's comparing apples to oranges. Also, I dispute the idea that JRE is mainstream. It might be the most mainstream podcast, but almost everyone I know either hates the show or believes that Joe Rogan is a bad person, so I'm skeptical.

I like to think of there being different domains of trust. Trust to present accurate information to their best knowledge, trust to thoroughly vet information, trust to not construe facts to construct a false reality (ie a narrative), trust to tell it like it is, trust to not present a biased self interested story that omits important things purposefully, trust to be an expert on the subject matter, and so on.

Obviously any thinking individual will know Joe Rogan is worse at some of these aspects than mainstream media but they also recognize that mainstream media will willfully consistently violate other domains where Joe Rogan won't.

I trust Joe Rogan will tell me some stupid stuff about conspiracies and extra dimensionality trips, but I also trust that he won't tell me this stuff just to sell me on sponsors or his party's agenda, unlike the mainstream news.

How can you trust a news source that interviews everyone and selectively pushes back to construct a narrative, often in an artificially limited format that obscures nuance?

The media companies don't have any special domain experience, they've got no clear idea if what they are reporting on is true or not.

Unfortunately yes

Yes a bunch of people do unfortunately. Same with things like tucker carlson, alex jones, and a whole bunch of crazies creating an alternate reality that has lead to Trump, Jan 6 and more. There is some of this on the left but IMHO the 'reality' in that sphere is more having a worldview or political positions based mostly on facts.