“Rush Limbaugh recently claimed that the media is manufacturing unwarranted panic about Hurricane Irma as part of a plot to hype climate change, boost ratings and increase advertising revenue from businesses that stand to make money off purchases of batteries and bottled water.
“Limbaugh then accused The Washington Post and other news outlets of twisting his words while simultaneously doubling down on his conspiracy theory on Thursday.”
Of course, major media news programs are excessive in their reporting of major events like hurricanes and tornadoes but it’s not meant to be intentionally misleading. After all, it’s no news when a dog bites a person, but it’s big news when a person bites a dog. Why should anyone get excited over good weather forecast. A hurricane is an important and dangerous weather event for the people in its path. And news outlets do make their programs exciting to watch to improve ratings. But at the same time its providing valuable public service announcements. As leadership in the states affected by dangerous weather events say “it’s better to prepare for the worse and hope for the better.”
The fact is Rush Limbaugh is the one who is creating his own ratings by getting everyone excited with his fake news. Rush Limbaugh is not providing a public service. He is encouraging people to ignore hurricanes like Irma and put their lives at risk.
On Thursday, Limbaugh “indicated he is evacuating his Palm Beach mansion, from which he broadcasts daily, for "parts unknown.
"May as well go ahead and announce this," he said. "I'm not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow. ... We'll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown. So we'll be back on Monday. It's just that tomorrow is going to be problematic. Tomorrow it would be, I think, legally impossible for us to originate the program out of here.
“Limbaugh presented the departure as more of an inconvenience than a proper response to imminent danger.
"'You know, I had to cancel a bunch of stuff,' he said. 'I was going to go to a private movie screening this afternoon, and I had a bunch of stuff to do tonight, and now that's all blown to smithereens.'"
By Callum Borchers, The Washington Post
