How Weathercasters Became the Latest Target of Conspiracy Theorists

John Morales, the Florida TV meteorologist who went viral after fighting back tears as he warned of megastorm Hurricane Milton, personifies a little-known fact: Local TV weathercasters are the most trusted figures in American news. Even as the popularity of ‘the media’ has plummeted in recent decades, people still rely on their local TV weather makers. After all, these weather makers help their viewers through terrifying times by providing practical, life-saving information. “People know me as a man who gets the facts straight and is not alarmist,” Morales said later, adding: “I think it shocked a lot of people who have known me as a weatherman for 33 years.”

Given that level of trust, it makes perverse sense that the same liars and haters who vilify immigrants and people of color would eventually come before weathermen. In September and October, an explosion of disinformation surrounding Hurricanes Helene and Milton led to a flood of harassment and even death threats against weathermen throughout the US. This wasn’t just the work of climate deniers. Proponents of “anti-migrant conspiracies, false claims of election fraud, and anti-Semitic discourse…come together in moments of crisis to co-opt the news cycle and launder their views to a broader or mainstream audience,” an study on the campaign of falsehoods that followed Hurricane Helene explained.

The attacks on weathermakers recycled a key innovation in modern political propaganda—one that began and scuttled Democrat John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign: Attack your opponent’s strongest point, not his weakest. To dilute Kerry’s appeal as a Vietnam War hero, Republican strategist Karl Rove led the “Swift Boat” campaign, which vilified Kerry as a coward who lied about his battlefield exploits.. The story was eventually debunked, but not before millions of Americans heard it and perhaps changed their minds about voting for Kerry.

For fossil fuel champions, today’s attacks have a strategic logic, as TV weathermakers have emerged as some of the most effective mass communicators on the climate crisis. Morales, in partnership with the nonprofit Climate Centralhas helped this transformation. Twenty years ago, his profession was dominated by climate skeptics; Today, the vast majority of American weathermakers accept climate change as a scientific fact, and more and more do talk about it on the air.

In the aftermath of Helene and Milton, liars and haters also targeted FEMA workers and the storm victims. Those victims “lost everything, and now they’re trying to figure out, ‘How do I apply for help?’” former President Barack Obama said at a rally. campaign rally for Kamala Harris on October 10. Spreading lies that FEMA is there to hurt, not help, is “deceiving (victims) at their most desperate and vulnerable moments,” Obama continued. He then explicitly addressed “the Republicans out there” and asked, “When did that become okay?”

Obama didn’t have to give the answer, it was so clear: it became okay with the rise of Donald Trump. After all, Trump’s path to the White House began with his lies that the country’s first black president was not born in the US and that his presidency was therefore not legitimate. The acquiescence of Republican Party leaders, who feared Trump’s hold on a significant portion of Republican voters, kept Trump’s subsequent lies unchecked. Just as no leading Republicans addressed Trump’s birther lies in 2016, none, with the exception of Senator Mitt Romney, have have publicly rejected Trump’s constant barrage of lies, including his ridiculous insistence that he did not lose the 2020 election.

Trump’s example has emboldened right-wing extremists, including radio host Alex Jones, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and mega-billionaire Elon Musk, to spread equally damaging lies. Jones, best known for insisting the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax, posted a video claiming the government deliberately aimed Hurricane Helene at North Carolina. In response, Greene posted: “It’s ridiculous when someone lies and says it can’t be done.” Musk falsely claimed that “FEMA has blown up its budget bringing illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason.”

In their own ways, local TV weathercasters and FEMA workers can be seen as first responders to disasters that will only get worse. Weathercasters provide the authoritative information ordinary people need to decide whether to evacuate, if they can; One reason Milton’s death toll was relatively low is that most people heeded evacuation warnings. In turn, FEMA workers take care of the material aid that victims need immediately after such disasters.

However, it is all too easy to imagine that in the minds of Trump and other disinformation purveyors, these first responders belong to “the enemy within,” whom Trump has repeatedly threatened to crack down on if he regains the White House. They can be “easily handled,” he told Fox News. “if necessary, by the National Guard or, if really necessary, by the army.”

Dangerous words to be sure, but dangerous words that can be countered by the power of the ballot.