This autumn-winter season our students from EJTA EUfactcheck-schools will publish their new fact checks, blogs and media analyses in a sixth season of fighting misinformation in Europe. With in-depth research these future journalists unravel claims in a world between truth and confusion. With more cross-national collaboration we hope to keep you, our critical audience, alert on important European topics. Follow us on social media and be the first to read our fact checks!
On 5 October 2021, British broadcaster and former politician Nigel Farage made a statement about wind energy in September 2021. During the show “FOX Business” on the broadcaster FOX he said that “in September wind energy only produced 2% of the energy needs”. This statement is mostly true. Nigel Farage is a British broadcaster and…
The lobby organization Initiative for Social Market Economy (INSM) published nine facts about the EU on their website. One of them is “One third of EU exports to South Korea are made in Germany”, which seemed to be true. The INSM is financed by employers’ associations and, according to its own statement, acts independently of political parties. As…
According to published research by Chinese scientists, human testicles are a potential target for the coronavirus infection COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The researchers found that the ACE2 receptor, through which this virus enters cells, is highly expressed in the testes.
Russia Today DE claims that there have been only four OSCE-observers at the German Bundestag elections this year, whereas there have been 59 at the 2017 elections. Though the numbers were not incorrect, RT DE left out crucial information about how they were formed, drastically changing the bottom line and possible interpretations of the claim.…
The Pandora Papers have revealed tax evasion from around the world. Peter De Roover, a Belgian politician, tweeted on October 7th: “The government doesn’t lose money because of tax evasion. She simply compensates through higher tax assessments on others. In fraud, the good taxpayer is the victim, not the government.” His claim is false. “RESEARCH…
On August 8th 2021, Alice Weidel, member of the German parliament and part of a right-winged populist political party, tweeted about Germany’s contributions to the European Union. She stated that the overall payments added up to almost 20 billion Euros, twice as much as France has paid. The claim turns out to be mostly true. According…
On 6th of September 2021, the former chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz made a statement during an interview with the Austrian TV-Channel ORF where he outlined that Austria is spending over one billion euros on development cooperation and humanitarian aid. He also said that since he is in charge the money Austria spends in this…
On the 29th of September, Belgian politician Bart De Wever (N-VA) tweeted how bad the legalization of cannabis would be. Based on a recent Canadian study (Statistics Canada) , legalization resulted in more cannabis use in the country. Canada being the only country in the world, besides Uruguay, where cannabis is completely legal. Does legalization…
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission since 2019, stated on the 15th September 2021 in her speech in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg that more than 70 percent of the European adult population were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This claim turns out to be true. Every September the President of…
The British news service The Guardian claimed that “Four in 10 young people fear having children due to climate crisis“. The news service is referring to an international study that surveyed young people in 10 countries. The claim came out to be mostly true. For the article The Guardian used findings from a study that…
In the Factcheck, we found out that one third of EU exports to South Korea are made in Germany. But what does the agreement between the EU and South Korea really mean for both sides? Who gains, who loses? An assessment by renowned experts. Free Trade versus Protectionism Free trade is the exchange of services and…
The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE observes elections within all its member states. The ODIHR recently deployed a mission of four experts to Germany for the federal elections on September 26th. Here’s how different media view the work of the OSCE as well as the integrity of German politics. The…
When we started the research for some claims that could work for us, the amount of possibilities was quite big. We are from two different countries that share almost nothing except for the fact that they are part of the European Union. That means that we could choose within the Spanish political landscape, the Austrian…
Human reproduction is essential for the continuance of the human species. Antinatalism is the absolute rejection of human birth. A large number of antinatalists embrace antinatalism for climate political motives. Is society ready for such drastic measures to provide a future for the living? Interview with: Verena Brunschweiger Leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions in the…
The Lobachevsky University atop (picture taken by Daniel Buylov) and the Jade University of applied sciences (picture taken by Jan Claas Rosebrock) at the bottom – there’s more to the picture than meets the eye. Being neutral and objective is one of THE standards by which qualitative journalism is measured. But truth is an abstract…
Nowadays, 27 countries are members of the European Union, that was founded in 1993. All of them benefit from democracy, security and free movement of products and capital. The aim of this Blogpost is a conceptional experiment, which takes place in Europe – but pictures the countries without the reliable union. All members have left the…
Ever since COVID-19 changed our daily lives, the news seem overloaded with varying information on the pandemic. Updates on the vaccination rate and the number of infected people as well as videos of demonstrations on the most recent measures by the government and articles on the newest conspiracy theories about the coronavirus make one feel extremely…
Women flee to Germany in search of better prospects. Once in Germany, a lot of them fall into unemployment, unlike many of their male counterparts. But why do refugee women find it so much harder to get a job than refugee men? During our fact-check titled “After about five years, approximately half of refugees are…
The village where I grew up is small, everyone here knows everything about each other, and news spreads quickly: “Naira’s daughter married a city boy” “Nika went to America to study”, “Marina’s cow is pregnant.” But people care about politics and foreign relations, too. In the past, those who came from the fields used to sit in…
On 16 March 2021, BBC Online reported on negative health effects linked to noise pollution. During the fact check, we learned that vibrations and noises not only irritate a person and cause discomfort but can also lead to negative health consequences such as cardiovascular diseases including hypertension, gastrointestinal ulcers, vegetative disorders, mental illnesses, and hearing…
EUFACTCHECK is the fact-checking project of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) that intends to build a sustainable curriculum unit on fact-checking within a European network of Journalism schools.
Through fact-checking European political claims and trying to tackle misinformation, we want our students and our public to grow a deeper insight and interest in democratic processes, both on national and European level.
EUFACTCHECK wishes to motivate fact-based debate in the EU and to stimulate media and information literacy.
After the success of the students’ publications, the participants of EJTA’s fact-checking project EUFACTCHECK decided at the EJTA AGM in Paris (July 2019) to move on with the project and to take new steps in the academic year 2019-2020.
At the EJTA Teachers’ Conference in Dortmund (October 2019) practical details were discussed and a new publication schedule was created for autumn 2019.
By January-February 2019 a manual with guidelines and tips & tricks will be published and on 13-14 February 2020 a second Bootcamp will be organised in Ljubljana, with financial help from the Evens Foundation. This Train the Trainer will be focussing on Central Eastern European countries, but also on new participants that want to publish on the platform.
All the information about this event: nadia.vissers@ap.be
“What is this politician saying??” Did you read or hear a politician or public figure make a questionable claim? Send us an email with the claim and maybe we will fact-check it.
Please include the source (url and date) where you found the claim.
