Alex Hubbard

USA Today Network - Tennessee

Find out what it’s like to be a fact-checker in the modern era of politics.

Bill Adair, founder of PolitiFact, one of the premier fact-checking outlets in the country, will appear Thursday at Vanderbilt’s First Amendment Center.

Adair’s lecture, “Pants on Fire: A Fact-checker’s Tales of the 2016 Election,” will focus on the work of PolitiFact, which won it a Pulitzer Prize after the 2008 election. The website investigates and rates the claims made by politicians and other prominent public officials.

Adair, who previously served as Washington bureau chief for the Tampa Bay Times, founded PolitiFact in 2007. He is now a journalism professor at Duke University.

The talk marks the first of the Seigenthaler Series, a series named for the late Tennessean editor and publisher, John Seigenthaler, which will explore issues surrounding media and fundamental freedoms.

Adair will speak Thursday, Feb. 2, at 6 p.m., with a reception to follow. It is free and open to the public. RSVP at http://www.newseum.org/events-programs/rsvp3/.

The First Amendment Center is inside Vanderbilt’s Seigenthaler Center, located at 1207 18th Ave. S.