For the purpose of media accountability, Just Facts has summarized 40 misleading claims spread by journalists, commentators, and so-called fact checkers during 2025.
Each example quotes a specific media outlet, but the vast bulk of these falsehoods and half-truths were spread by multiple news sources, and some were propagated by dozens.
1: Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss
An Associated Press article published by PBS in December claimed that “climate change” is making “biodiversity loss worse.”
In fact, a prestigious scholarly journal published a study in October that found “extinctions related to climate change have not significantly increased over the last approximately 200 years.” Just Facts documented similar facts more than a decade ago.
2: Food Stamps and Inflation
PolitiFact claimed that a Republican bill to reform food stamps “would bar increases to monthly SNAP benefits” for “inflation” and “in effect become cuts.”
In fact, the Republican bill barred presidents from increasing SNAP benefits above and beyond the rate of food inflation, like Biden did for the first time in the history of the program.
As detailed by the Government Accountability Office, the Biden administration raised SNAP benefits by “21 percent compared to the previous inflation-adjusted” amounts without adequate “economic analysis,” “disclosure,” or “documentation.”
3: Obamacare for Illegal Immigrants
CNN’s chief “fact checker,” Tom Foreman, claimed that Democrats didn’t demand Obamacare benefits for illegal immigrants in exchange for ending the government shutdown. The alleged evidence for this, he said, is that “the law itself says” that the “only people who could get” these benefits are “‘lawfully present in the United States.’”
In fact, the Democrat bill to reopen the government would have given about $91.4 billion of Obamacare benefits to illegal immigrants and other non-citizens over the next 10 years and multiples of that thereafter.
Like virtually every other major media outlet, CNN denied that reality by misportraying aliens who have been granted a temporary reprieve from deportation as legal immigrants. This included DACA recipients and millions of people that Biden illegally paroled into the country. The Biden administration even admitted that “DACA is not a form of lawful status” before making these illegal immigrants eligible for Obamacare benefits.
4: Violent Crime in Washington, DC
Reporting on President Trump’s takeover of the District of Columbia police force, ABC News claimed:
The president declaring an emergency, saying crime in D.C. is spiraling out of control, even though the district’s official figures showing violent crime recently hitting a 30-year low, down 26 percent since last year, numbers the president has baselessly called phony.
In fact, the “district’s official figures” isn’t a record of all violent crimes but exclude crimes not reported by the public to the police and crimes not reported by the police to the federal government. Thus, the FBI explicitly warns against “making any direct comparison” of such crime data over time because:
changes in police procedures, shifting attitudes toward crime and police, and other societal changes can affect the extent to which people report and law enforcement agencies record crime.
Murder is the best-measured and most violent crime, and FBI data show that the 2024 murder rate in DC was 83 percent higher than in 2012 and five times the average for all metropolitan areas in the nation.
5: Enhanced Obamacare Subsidies
ABC’s David Muir repeatedly claimed that health insurance premiums were going to “skyrocket” unless Republicans went along with Democrats’ plans to renew the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
In fact, Obamacare recipients paid an average of $74 per month for health insurance during 2025, and when the enhanced subsidies expire in 2026, they will pay just $159. The reason this figure is so low is because the original Obamacare subsidies will remain. Under these, taxpayers bear 83 percent of the premium costs, while Obamacare recipients pay an average of just 17 percent.
The much larger premium payments showcased by media outlets are outliers who comprise less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. population, are nearly old enough to receive Medicare, and have incomes that exceed four times the federal poverty level.
6: Motive of the Minneapolis Child Killer
The New York Times claimed that the “motive” of the transgender shooter who murdered two children at a Catholic school in Minneapolis “is a mystery.”
In fact, the shooter wrote in his journal and on his gun messages that accord with grievances and agendas of leftists, such as:
- “Kill Donald Trump”
- “Free Palestine”
- “Defend equality” (with a trans pride flag)
7: Motive of Charlie Kirk’s Assassin
CNN’s Kaitlin Collins claimed that “law enforcement hasn’t laid out a direct motive” for the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
In fact, the official charging document recorded that Tyler James Robinson “intentionally selected Charlie Kirk because” of his “belief or perception regarding Charlie Kirk’s political expression.”
Moreover, the charging document detailed the following facts, which specify the precise nature of Robinson’s motive:
- “Robinson’s mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”
- “Police interviewed Robinson’s roommate, a biological male who was involved in a romantic relationship with Robinson.”
- Robinson texted the roommate that he killed Kirk, a leading conservative, because, “I had enough of his hatred.”
- “Each round in the rifle contained an etched inscription,” one of which says, “Hey Fascist! Catch!”
8: Shunning Democratic Values
The New York Times claimed that JD Vance “shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference” by telling them to stop shunning “far-right parties.”
In fact, Vance told these European leaders to stop shunning “our shared democratic values” and learn from the “living memory of many of you in this room” that the Europeans who “censored dissidents,” “closed churches,” and “cancelled elections” were “not” the “good guys.” This refers to the Nazis and Soviets who killed tens of millions of people in the twentieth century.
9: Nazis and Free Speech
Margaret Brennan of CBS News claimed that “free speech was weaponized” in Nazi Germany to “conduct a genocide.”
In fact, free speech was censored in Nazi Germany to conduct a genocide. In the words of Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, “National Socialism” (Nazism) outlawed free speech to place itself “beyond the possibilities of criticism.”
To drive that point home, Goebbels added that “the right to criticize” can “be granted only to the wiser people over the more stupid ones and never the other way around.”
10: Global Warming
The New York Times claimed that the “burning of fossil fuels is dangerously heating the planet.”
In fact, broad measures of human and environmental welfare related to global warming have remained stable or improved for the past 30–170 years, contrary to predictions that they would have radically degraded by now. These include but aren’t limited to:
For another 30 examples of fake news in 2025, click here.
James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts, a research and educational institute dedicated to publishing facts about public policies and teaching research skills.
James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute.
