Courtesy of WaPo:After claiming Hurricane Irma was a liberal hoax, Rush Limbaugh evacuates South Florida http://pic.twitter.com/NVvceqZWwx— Media Matters (@mmfa) September 8, 2017
Rush Limbaugh didn't say the magic words, but on Tuesday he basically accused the media of creating fake news about Hurricane Irma, which is threatening Florida after hitting Barbuda and Antigua. The storm's 185-mile-per-hour winds tied the record high for any Atlantic hurricane making landfall.“These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they're reported,” Limbaugh claimed on his syndicated radio show. He added that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean's having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.”
Why would the media exaggerate the threat of a hurricane? Here's Limbaugh's theory:
"There is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage people’s homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens?
Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media.
The local media, in turn, reports in such a way as to create the panic way far out, which sends people into these stores to fill up with water and to fill up with batteries, and it becomes a never-ending repeated cycle. And the two coexist. So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because they’re getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers."
This was so egregious that even mild mannered weather dude Al Roker felt the need to call Limbaugh out on his shit.
Do not listen to @rushlimbaugh when he says #Irma is not a dangerous #storm and is hype. He is putting people's lives at risk— Al Roker (@alroker) September 6, 2017
And now we see Limbaugh fleeing like a camp counselor in a horror movie from a storm that he claimed was being exaggerated to frighten people into buying stuff.To have @rushlimbaugh suggest the warnings about #Irma are #fake or about profit and to ignore them borders on criminal. #ShameOnRush— Al Roker (@alroker) September 6, 2017
If he were a man of his convictions he would stay put as an inspiration to his followers.
Just think how many would show to his funeral.
Assuming they could find the body of course.
Source http://ift.tt/2gSxBu5
