{"id":119768,"date":"2017-09-27T02:38:42","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T06:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=119768"},"modified":"2017-09-27T02:38:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T06:38:42","slug":"famous-fake-news-writer-found-dead-outside-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/09\/27\/famous-fake-news-writer-found-dead-outside-phoenix\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous fake news writer found dead outside Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Wikipedia<\/a>
(Wikipedia Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PHOENIX \u2014 A leading purveyor of fake news in the 2016 presidential election has died outside Phoenix at the age of 38.<\/p>\n

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Mark Casey said Tuesday authorities discovered Paul Horner dead in his bed on Sept. 18.<\/p>\n

Casey said the Maricopa County medical examiner performed an autopsy which showed there were no signs of foul play. He said Horner had a history of prescription drug abuse and that \u201cevidence at the scene suggested this could be an accidental overdose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horner was known for writing false stories and disseminating internet hoaxes that often went viral on Facebook and hoodwinked thousands of people.<\/p>\n

They included a story falsely claiming President Barack Obama was gay and a radical Muslim, and another saying protesters were being paid thousands of dollars to demonstrate at Donald Trump’s campaign rallies.<\/p>\n

Horner took on greater prominence during the presidential election when false stories were widely shared on social media during the race between Trump and Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Washington Post in 2016, Horner said he thought Trump won the White House because of him. Horner said Trump’s supporters didn’t fact-check his stories before posting them.<\/p>\n

J.J., Horner’s brother, said Paul considered his work satire and explained that his brother’s unique eye for hoaxes and hypocrisy at a young age later worked as clickbait in the internet world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think that was a lot of the genius behind a lot of his work was pushing ideas that either people wanted to believe or thought was possible,\u201d J.J. said.<\/p>\n

Casey said toxicology reports from the medical examiner’s office are still pending. The case will remain open until those results are known and a cause of death is finalized.<\/p>\n

J.J. Horner said they grew up in Minnesota before moving to Arizona as teenagers. He said his brother was drawing and making political cartoons at a very young age and took an interest in politics.<\/p>\n

Horner said while his brother was pigeonholed as a Trump supporter after a member of the Trump family shared one of his stories, he was always transparent about his views and it was obvious that he wasn’t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he just wanted people to just think for themselves and be credible for their actions,\u201d J.J. Horner said. \u201cRead more; get more involved instead of just blindly sharing things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 A leading purveyor of fake news in the 2016 presidential election has died outside Phoenix at the age …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":119772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,16],"tags":[24972],"class_list":["post-119768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-news","tag-paul-horner","mauthors-clarice-silber","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}