This segment originally aired Oct. 19, 2016, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.VICE News visited the PolitiFact office on Sept. 26 to see what it’s like to watch a presidential debate with a group of fact-checkers.The 2016 campaign has featured so many lies that many have dubbed it the “post-truth” election, but fact-checkers are still in demand. “Everybody’s on duty on debate night,” PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan said. “It’s not just our biggest traffic of the year — it’s our biggest traffic of four years.”Many of the dubious claims Holan’s team encountered that night had already been fact-checked in previous months, but she hasn’t lost faith in the process. “I do my duty like every citizen; I do vote,” she said. “Frankly, working as a fact-checker has made me more appreciative of the fact that public policy is really complex.”
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How fact-checkers are dealing with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
"Everybody's on duty on debate night. It's not just our biggest traffic of the year—it's our biggest traffic of four years."