Snopes Digest Issue #104: Reader appreciation, post-election fact checks — and more (2024)

Nov. 26, 2024・Issue #104

I’m grateful to report that Snopes is not only bigger than it’s ever been (we’ll hit our goal of 20 full-time employees in the newsroom by mid-January) but smarter about tracking our success and understanding what our audiences want. We welcomed so many new employees this year that it was hard to keep names straight at times. And like you we survived a momentous presidential election that included not one but two assassination attempts and a last-minute change-up for one party’s nominee.

All fingers intact? Check. Blood pressure normal? Getting there. Snopes ready for a new presidential administration? Oh hell yes. And that is in part because of you. Your support reminds us that what we do matters and helps us provide livable wages to our staff. So on behalf of our tiny-but-growing newsroom, I thank you profoundly. Happy Thanksgiving.

— Doreen Marchionni, executive editor/managing editor

Keep Snopes Debunking

We need your continued support to continue our fact-finding mission.

OnElection Day, we were hard at work fact-checking the most dangerous rumors spreading online. The work has continued since then. Here is a sampling of fact checks about voting, alleged quotes by elected officials and claims related to election results.

As always, reach out anytime using our contact form if you have feedback or fact-checking ideas for the team.

Overheard: Yeah I'm all about that good lighting in every area of my life💡

— Reporter Nikki Dobrin

When we look into rumors about the past, newspaper archives are powerful resources. Combing through old articles using tools like Newspapers.com and the New York Times’ TimesMachine can be tedious, but with patience — and a little luck — it can also be rewarding.

For instance, I once spent a rollercoaster of a day investigating a rumor that Robert Chesebrough, the inventor of Vaseline, ate a spoonful of petroleum jelly every day until he died at age 96 in 1933. No book or magazine that repeated the rumor included a citation for it, and an archivist at Unilever, which owns the Vaseline brand, wasn’t able to help.

But wading through mentions of Chesebrough in his local newspaper, paid off. A few months before he died, the paper ran a letter by Chesebrough about his invention, and he ended with: “I take more than a teaspoon daily and I believe I owe to it my approaching 97 years of age." That was the proof I was looking for.

More recently, I took a dive into newspaper archives while investigating a photo that supposedly showed a U.S. soldier during World War II replacing a German street sign that read “Adolf-Hitler-Str.” with one that read “Roosevelt Blvd.” A search for the soldier’s name in 1945 confirmed the photo's authenticity. It had been taken by a U.S. Army photographer and ran in dozens of newspapers across the country that year.

Mental Health Break

— Joshua Benton, Nieman Lab

— Taylor Lorenz, User Mag

— Craig Jenkins, Vulture

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