As heroic Californians fighting the blazes that erupted throughout Southern California last week were joined by heroes from other states and countries, the country’s right-wing disinformation machine was busy tut-tutting at California for imaginary policies that they say led to the out-of-control wildfires. One of the key local channels for that information, Elon Musk’s favorite local newspaper the Santa Monica Observer, has been busy helping fuel the flames of disinformation.
“Sacramento Bottles Up 60 Oregon Firetrucks Sent to Assist California Fire Fight, Lacking Smog Certificates” blared the headline on social media, parroting a now-deleted tweet by Oregon resident Parker Cardwell*. The image was too good to be true for someone steeped in the right wing conspiracy world: manly heroes being detained for silly environmental reasons during a major crisis by the liberal hellhole of California, which cares more about diversity than safety. And of course the story is not true.
The Observer, famous nationally for spreading the theory that Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in his home by a spurned gay lover (in part because of a social media boost by Musk), helped spread the “firefighters detained so their vehicles could go through a smog test” lie by publishing a story about it that was then shared several thousand times on social media. The Observer retracted the firefighter story after a couple of days but didn’t change the headline, assuring that any social media shares in a fact-check-free world will continue to spread this lie.
So what did happen? Firefighting equipment entering the state did have to undergo tests, but not for vehicle emissions. Equipment has to meet certain safety standards, and Oregon’s firefighters met them. State officials estimate they were delayed about fifteen minutes. In fact, the Oregon firefighters were fighting the blaze by the time the Observer first wrote its piece.
But California had to pay a price for this little article. State officials in California and Oregon had to debunk the stories when they should have been focusing on more urgent matters. And federal officials looking to deny aid to California had another arrow for their quiver of false online information about California.
We could go through all the things that the Observer could have done to fact-check before the story went live, but what would be the point? The Observer is just a cog in the right-wing disinformation machine that has overtaken reality in America. It exists to spread misinformation about Santa Monica and California to an audience looking to do some hippy-punching.
*Cardwell, for his part, has apologized, admitted his tweet was irresponsible, congratulated Oregon and its firefighters for their willingness to help, and sent his well wishes to the people impacted by the fire.
