Satire

Did Casey Anthony, a Florida woman cleared of murdering her daughter in 2008, open a daycare center in Branson, Missouri in April 2025? No, that's not true: A widely-shared Facebook post was created by an account that labels its output as satire. In March 2025, Anthony described herself as a legal advocate and researcher. The claim that Anthony opened a…

Did commentator Ben Shapiro criticize the work of American painter Georgia O'Keeffe for "not looking like anything"? No, that's not true: quotations attributed to Shapiro actually originated in a 2021 article by the self-described satire website The Hard Times, and were re-shared again in March 2025. Similarly, Shapiro never posted a video to YouTube with the title "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS…

Did the U.S. State Department deny Dr. Anthony Fauci's passport renewal application in March 2025? No, that's not true: The original source of that claim about the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was an article on a website that describes its own content as "fiction" and "satire." The article attributed quotations to two fictional…

Update: April Fools! Dozens of people tried registering their username, which shows there is a great need for facts on social media. Go here if you want to make your social media timeline a little more factual... Introducing: Fact/Line™ Lead Stories is proud to present Fact/Line™: a brand new social network based on facts and fact checking. Wouldn't it be…

As you could tell by the date, this was an April Fools' joke and we didn't really launch a mad conspiracy-spewing AI bot. Hope you enjoyed it! Colorado Springs - Award-winning fact checking organization Lead Stories is proud to announce the launch of FactGPT, the world's first AI-powered fact checking chatbot. Combining the power of Lead Stories' database of existing…

UPDATE: Yes, this was an April Fools Day joke... Check the publication date. The "test" is just some progress bars moving and a message being displayed at the end. Of course a random website doesn't get to access to your browser history or social media data just because you clicked a button. After years of experimenting Lead Stories has developed…

Update: Yes, of course this was an April Fools joke :-) For years we here at Lead Stories have put the term "F*ke N*ws" in every headline but it is time to put a stop to the practice. For a long time academic experts like Claire Wardle have argued against using the phrase because it simply covers too many meanings…

Southend-on-Sea, U.K. - Consternation today in the British media landscape. One of the most respected official publications in all of the United Kingdom will be forced to shut down after losing European subsidies in the wake of the Brexit from the European Union. A statement from European Commissar for Media Affairs & Honest Reporting Jaques Meoff from Luxemburg earlier today…

Tragedy struck today during a family Easter brunch for Angie Holan, editor at fact checking website Politifact. An anonymous source close to the family exclusively told Lead Stories what happened: Angie wanted to bring in some extra dishes from the kitchen but there was no more room on the table. So she temporarily moved some decorative candles onto uncle Rick's…

New York, NY - In a surprise move popular website BuzzFeed has announced plans to launch a fake news spin-off. In a press release distributed to fact checkers today it was revealed Craig Silverman will be the editor-in-chief of the new publication. In an exclusive conversation with Lead Stories Silverman revealed the reasons for the move: It's quite logical if…

Reports indicate intrepid reporter and truth-teller Baxter Dimitri from the always reliable legitimate news website YourNewsWire was kidnapped today by Russian Deep State Aliens on direct orders from the Vatican. According to these reports Pope Francis has ordered a secret cabal of big pharma supporting doctors to make sure Dimitri is injected with a mind control vaccine to stop him…

Experts have warned a crisis is imminent as the world is running out of facts to check. A recent study by the Federal Institute for Statistics on Hoaxes (F.I.S.H.) estimated that every fact in the world would be checked as early as 2022. This would put thousands of fact checkers out of work and could even lead to a global…

Pristina, Kosovo - After a wide-ranging investigation one of our undercover reporters found out that most mainstream news websites in Kosovo are in fact being run out of the basement of Chief Horner's Indian Restaurant and Casino in St. Paul, right in the middle of one of America's oldest Native American reservations. By using a combination of geolocation tools, domain…

Chicago, IL - In a surprise announcement the management of famous satire website The Onion has announced today it will transition to being a regular news outlet. A statement released to the press read: In the end simple economics led to this decision. It is just too much work to keep inventing outlandish stories that can compete with all the…

Folks, the vicious feud between President Trump and the fake news media has finally come to an end. After prolonged secret negotiations brokered by the Dalai Lama and international disarmament expert Claire Wardle the various warring factions have decided to burry the hatchet: Donald Trump, George Soros, the Illuminati, the owers of Comet Ping Pong Pizza, Alex Jones, Twitter, Facebook,…

Quebec, Canada - Armed police stormed into a suburban home this morning to arrest Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault for running a fake news website to fund their poutine addiction. Investigators believe the men used their website World News Daily Report to flood the world with invented news about bizarre crimes and weird sex acts in order to rake…

Maine - Fake news kingpin Christopher Blair (better known under his alias "Busta Troll") was found dead this morning in front of his computer after a neighbour heard sounds of a struggle and several gunshots. Witness Hank Meancrest who lives next door told police investigators he though he saw Hillary Clinton's limousine flee the scene of the crime shortly before…

The pope has redefined the meaning of the word 'ironic' with this tweet: Do not underestimate the value of example, for it is more powerful than a thousand words, a thousand "likes", retweets or YouTube videos. -- Pope Francis (@Pontifex) February 23, 2017 Here is a screenshot of the tweet, with the ironic part highlighted: He certainly sets a great…