Like so many articles and papers of this sort, the headlines and conclusions make claims that the actual evidence can't back up. In this particular case, they

Like so many articles and papers of this sort, the headlines and conclusions make claims that the actual evidence can't back up. In this particular case, they analyzed two particular "lies" from the 2016 Trump campaign. First, Trump claimed that there was a rising tide of violent crime -- and pointed to a 17% increase in the homicide rate in the 50 largest cities. This was "debunked" by the statement that the FBI had found that the nationwide murder rate had increased, but was below the level of 10 years before. First, that is an increase in the murder rate (actually, 20% more murders per capita than just 2 years before), and second, Trump didn't make a claim in any way related to the murder rate when compared specifically with 1991 (the year chosen by the paper to "prove" the lie). He made a claim about violent crime, and specifically about the homicide rate in the largest cities. Then, the article goes on to "debunk" a second "lie" -- this time about jobs leaving Michigan and Ohio. The "proof" that this is a lie is that, after decades of decline, there was indeed a modest uptick going on at the moment that Trump spoke. As if 75,000 new jobs in 2016 can make up for the almost 600,000 Michigan jobs (over 10% of the labor force) that had been lost from 1999 through 2014. With "fact checking" like that, it's hardly surprising that the "fact checking" didn't change people's minds