evidence: NO: There is no truth to the conspiratorial claim that a child-sex trafficking ring was ever operated out of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza shop in Washington, D.C. YES: James Meek, a veteran reporter for ABC News, pleaded guilty to transportation and possession of child pornography in July 2023. NO: Meek was not a "Pizzagate expert" and was not involved with the network’s investigations into the debunked conspiracy theory. YES: The Pizzagate conspiracy theory — which is a precursor to QAnon conspiracy theories — was widely debunked by reporting from dozens of reputable, standards-based news and fact-checking organizations. YES: A fabricated New York post headline that falsely labeled Meek as the "journalist who ‘debunked’ Pizzagate" was circulated on social media in August 2023. NewsLit takeaway: Purveyors of misinformation frequently fabricate false claims to spread and support false narratives, or to draw well-established facts into question. While those individual claims are often swiftly debunked, their underlying messages often persist on social media as they get repeated in new memes and posts.