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Matt Drudge Seems to Enjoy our Fires

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There are no flaming sirens on the worlds most popular sortablog, but the Drudge Report has been having a field day over-hyping the already-tragic Southland fires. With all-caps screaming headlines like "HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS FLEE SOCAL INFERNOS" to "HELL COMES TO MALIBU", Drudge has taken the dramatic news and blown it up so much that he is almost making it unbelievable.

Those of us here in Southern California know how bad it is, but bro is ridiculous. Yes the hills are on fire. Yes lots of people are being forced to evacuate but people, thankfully, have seemed to have time to leave quickly and safely. And despite the strong winds, the firefighters and other professionals seem to be communicating beautifully and doing all the right things to make the INFERNOS manageable.

The photo of the Malibu surfer casually looking over his shoulder couldn't be more appropriate.

As Editor-in-Chief of our newsroom, I’m extremely proud of the work our top-notch journalists are doing here at LAist. We’re doing more hard-hitting watchdog journalism than ever before — powerful reporting on the economy, elections, climate and the homelessness crisis that is making a difference in your lives. At the same time, it’s never been more difficult to maintain a paywall-free, independent news source that informs, inspires, and engages everyone.

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