Election

Does a New York Post headline claim that James Gordon Meek, a former investigative journalist for ABC who pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in September 2023, also "debunked" the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory? No, that's not true: Such a headline never appeared in the New York Post. Additionally, there's no evidence that Meek ever wrote a story about Pizzagate. The…

Has a journalist who debunked the "pizzagate" conspiracy theory also been charged with child pornography? No, that's not true: the allegation was based on a faked screenshot of a non-existent New York Post headline. While former ABC investigative reporter James Gordon Meek was sentenced in September 2023 for possessing child sexual abuse material, he is not one of the journalists…

Did former President Donald Trump advertise a water filter on Facebook? No, that's not true: Outside of the post making such a claim, Lead Stories did not find any evidence confirming that. A video with a Trump-sounding narration likely utilized a so-called "cloned" version of the former president's voice generated by AI. The claim originated from a post (archived here)…

Did 17,327 dead people vote in Michigan in the 2020 presidential election? No, that's not true: The Michigan Office of the Auditor General released an audit in March 2022 that found 1,616 votes cast by electors who died prior to election day in the 2020 general election were tallied. No voter fraud was determined to have occurred by the audit,…

Did a "Prague newspaper" publish an article referring to Canada as a "confederacy of fools" and describing its prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as "the prince of fools" in 2023? No, that's not true: The purported quote is a years-old repurposed fragment of text whose authorship has never been verified. In the past, the same quote was used to criticize other…

Did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's psychiatrist commit suicide in 2023? No, that's not true: This claim was published in 2010 by a blog that labeled its content "News, Commentary and Satire," and it was recirculated online in 2023. There is no evidence that Netanyahu's psychiatrist, if he has one, committed suicide in 2023. The claim appeared in an article…

Does an image shared on social media document a 2023 attack on a French Jewish woman in her home during this year's escalation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the Middle East? No, that's not true: The photo predates the 2023 Hamas-Israel war. It was taken in 2017 in Michigan. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, formerly known…

Was Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds interrupted by Trump chants during the speech in which she endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the presidential race? No, that's not true: The audio of the November 6, 2023, speech has been edited to include chants and remarks from a different event that took place on August 12, 2023. The "we want Trump" chants…

Did NBC News say that former President Barack Obama, who left the White House in January 2017, was serving a "third term" in 2023 as a shadow president? No, that's not true: NBC did not report that. Its news article only referred to claims about Obama "somehow secretly still in power" as an example of election-related misinformation, emphasizing that such…

Did a "survey" find that COVID-19 vaccines "killed 3.5X more Americans than COVID virus"? No, that's not true: A medical professional who treats patients of long COVID told Lead Stories that the so-called survey "lacked scientific rigor" and could not be extrapolated to the broader public -- it was not scientifically sound and included methodological flaws. The claim originated in…