Hurricane forecasting is no more an exact science than election forecasting.  In both cases, the caution of experts is thrown to the wind – so to speak – by partisan news actors.  Just as we heard ad nauseam during the first two hours of coverage on November 8 that Donald Trump had awoken a sleeping giant, the Hispanic vote, and that the GOP had better kowtow to it in the future if it wanted to avoid another crushing defeat, so we were told that Irma would visit death and destruction on Florida and, in particular, would devastate Tampa. Off course news directors were concerned, legitimately, about lulling viewers into a  false sense of security.  But a lot of the apocalyptic tone of the TV anchors and meteorologists was just good old-fashioned yellow journalism.  The worst-case scenario became the only scenario.  There may have been a little schadenfreude as well, as there was in the coverage of Harvey.  Texas is a deep-dyed red, and...(Read Full Post)