In a significant departure from a 16-year tradition, the renowned fact-checking organization PolitiFact has declared that 2025 will not have a single "Lie of the Year." Instead, the platform, operated by the Poynter Institute, has designated the entire year as the "Year of the Lies," marking a profound shift in how it confronts the epidemic of misinformation.
A Consequential Recalibration for a Challenging Era
On Monday, December 15, 2025, PolitiFact announced it was stepping back from its annual year-end ritual of selecting one standout falsehood. Editor-in-Chief Katie Sanders explained that the sheer volume and impact of misinformation in 2025 made singling out just one lie feel insufficient. The traditional award, which started in 2009, was meant to highlight a statement or theme that caused a consequential undermining of reality.
"We are stepping back this year and recalibrating the Lie of the Year — focusing less on the offenders who perpetuate the falsehoods, and more on those who are hurt by them," Sanders wrote in a post on the PolitiFact website. This recalibration represents the first major change to the award's premise since its inception.
From Political Falsehoods to Human Impact
PolitiFact had initially presented its readers with several high-profile political falsehoods as potential candidates for the 2025 title. These included former President Donald Trump's "pants on fire" justification for boat strikes near Venezuela, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim of "no starvation" in Gaza, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's assertion that presidential tariffs were a "tax cut" for Americans.
However, the organization decided to pivot away from these political soundbites. Instead, it chose to spotlight three specific stories demonstrating the real-world consequences of misinformation and policy based on falsehoods:
- The severe struggles faced by a North Dakota farmer, sparked by the Trump administration's trade war with China.
- How medical claims from the Trump administration disrupted the practice of a Florida pediatrician.
- The story of two brothers who fled gang violence in El Salvador as children, built lives in the U.S., and were suddenly detained and deported in 2025 despite a history of complying with immigration authorities.
Affirming That Facts and Words Matter
In a conversation on "The Poynter Report Podcast" with Tom Jones, Katie Sanders stressed the human toll of the misinformation crisis. "We are kind of going back to basics and affirming that facts matter and words matter, and we’re going to show people why," Sanders stated. "We’re going to show that lies are powerful and they have consequences on real people."
This strategic shift from PolitiFact signals a deeper journalistic response to an information landscape where falsehoods are not merely political tools but drivers of tangible harm. By naming 2025 the "Year of the Lies," the fact-checker is framing the challenge as systemic, moving beyond cataloguing individual offenders to documenting the broad, damaging impact on society's most vulnerable.
