Is This Really How Mainstream Media Is Covering Hurricane Milton’s Threat to Florida?

When it comes to Hurricane Helene ravaging the southeast and Appalachian regions of this country, we have seen quite the shameful response from the Biden-Harris administration. The mainstream media has been all too happy to go along defending the federal government, and POLITICO, per usual, has been among the worst.

Tuesday’s morning of POLITICO focused on “The other storm threatening Florida.” There’s a measly paragraph about the actual effects on the storm, before we’re treated to a whole bunch on rant about “misinformation.” This is that “other storm” we’re supposed to worry about:

As if it weren’t enough to prepare for sustained 150 mph winds and 15 feet of storm surge, government officials on the local, state and federal levels are also preparing for a fresh tide of misinformation driven by the approaching election.

Mixing hurricanes and politics, of course, is nothing new. What has been novel, and alarming to many observers, is the unabashed campaign by DONALD TRUMP to question the federal response led by President JOE BIDEN and VP KAMALA HARRIS — one that has been encouraged and amplified (often with fabricated stories and artificial AI images) on his ally ELON MUSK’s social media platform.

Now, with Milton approaching, the White House is looking to play offense. Yesterday from the briefing room podium, press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE made debunking the online rumor campaign a central message. We spoke separately with deputy ANDREW BATES, who decried conspiracy theories that “have the depraved effect of scaring innocent people who have lost homes and loved ones out of the financial help they are owed and divide communities when standing together is more important than ever.”

Behind the scenes, we’re told, the White House intergovernmental affairs team has been making hundreds of calls directly to state and local officials to communicate directly about what aid is needed and what efforts are underway to get help to where it is needed.

Down in Florida, meanwhile, there is serious dread as online lies threaten to compound an already dire situation. Those concerns, we’ll note, are playing out against a backdrop of more conventional political sniping.

Yesterday, after NBC’s Matt Dixon reported that Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS has refused to take Harris’ calls about Helene recovery, the VP remarked that “anyone who calls himself a leader [should] put politics aside and put the people first.” That prompted DeSantis to fire back on Fox News last night, saying Harris “has no role in this” and “is trying to politicize the storm.” More from Kierra Frazier

But local leaders are more concerned at the moment about what’s coming online. Tampa-area Rep. KATHY CASTOR (D-Fla.) has previously spoken out about misinformation in other contexts, and she told Playbook she’s afraid the phenomenon is only going to get worse.

“The partisan political motivations behind disinformation campaigns are insidious,” she said. “Manipulating the facts and using a natural disaster to build political capital is a disgraceful tactic that risks delaying our communities’ recovery from these increasingly severe storms.”

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