PolitiFact announces its 2018 “Lie of the Year” — but readers have another idea

In a whirlwind year of dubious political claims and misinformation, PolitiFact has selected its the 2018 Lie of the Year.

The honor goes to the internet trolls who circulated false claims about the students who survived the Parkland shooting on Feb. 14, 2018.

Numerous claims were made about the survivors who quickly became known for their anti-gun activism. Bloggers said David Hogg wasn’t a student at the time of the shooting, but rather a hired crisis actor from California. His classmate Emma Gonzalez, according to another meme, had ties to Communist Cuba and publicly ripped up the U.S. Constitution.

Fellowship of the Mind, a website known for publishing conspiracy theories, alleged the Parkland students had planned the “March for Our Lives” months before the shooting even took place.

None of these claims had any merit to them and all received a “Pants on Fire” rating from PolitFact.

PolitiFact North Carolina also gave a “Pants on Fire’ rating to a claim by State Rep. Beverly Boswell, a Dare County Republican, who claimed the student organizers of “March for Our Lives” wanted to murder gun owners.

While this year’s “Lie of the Year” was the top pick by PolitiFact editors and staff, readers had a different idea. Their choice for 2018’s biggest political lie: President Donald Trump’s claim that Democrats want to invite “caravan after caravan of illegal aliens into our country.” This claim was rated False by PolitiFact.

Here are some of our other PolitiFact NC fact-checks this year.

This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters’ Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide.

This story was originally published December 11, 2018 at 2:21 PM.