Florida county surrenders to Rush Limbaugh fans

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Florida county surrenders to Rush Limbaugh fans
'Petty envy,' 'hypocrisy' cited in weather warnings dispute

Commissioners in a Florida county who objected to having hurricane warnings run on Clear Channel radio station WIOD because the station also carries talk radio host Rush Limbaugh have backed down.

The action in Broward County came after the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said in an editorial that "you'd think that emergency and storm information would be something to keep above politics and demagoguery," but "You obviously thought wrong."

As WND reported,  several commissioners recently balked at renewing a contract with AM radio station WIOD because the station carries Fox News, as well as Limbaugh.

Limbaugh addressed the controversy during in daily talk program:

"It's funny in a sense, but there are some real First Amendment concerns here, freedom of speech concerns. It's typical of liberals who want to shut certain people up. They talk about the Fairness Doctrine and so forth," he said.

"Anyway, we talked about this yesterday, and they were deluged [with calls], and they caved in a couple hours," he said.

The newspaper editorial noted the commissioners should be worried about finding "the most effective radio signal with which to broadcast urgent information to Broward's 1.7 million residents."

"The criticism of WIOD's line-up from Commissioners Stacy Ritter, Ken Keechl and Suzanne Gunzburger comes across as petty envy that conservative programming has found an audience in South Florida. Does this mean the county embraces diversity as long as it is not diversity of viewpoints?" the newspaper asked.

"Ritter's role in all this is particularly disappointing. As a member of the state Legislature, she decried partisanship that ran roughshod over ideas and proposals brought forth by outnumbered Democrats. Her call this week for ideological correctness smacks of hypocrisy," the paper said.

The newspaper reported that other commissioners – also Democrats – who were not at the meeting when the issue arose got word, and expressed support for continuing the contract with WIOD, meaning a majority of commissioners now support that plan.

"If your roof gets blown off, do you really care if the radio station that is giving you the information that you need also carries Rush Limbaugh?" asked Commissioner Kristin Jacobs. "I don't think so."

"They are politicizing the delivery of emergency news, which is non-partisan," Limbaugh noted.

Ritter had led the objections to WIOD, and Limbaugh.

"They have every right to speak, but we don't have to do business with them," she said.

"It's a shame that people would let politics get in the way of saving lives in a hurricane," said Ken Charles, WIOD's director of AM programming. The agreement with the county commits the station to broadcasting emergency announcements from the county without interruption.

He said the talk show lineup on the station has no relationship to its news coverage.

WIOD posts links to storm-related radar on its website, as well as weather reports and "Stormwatch" links to flight information, the Red Cross, FEMA, storm insurance, state officials, regional managers, those who can assist with evacuations and hurricane shelter information.