In May 2024 the EUfactcheck programme successfully factchecked the EU elections for the second time. From academic year 2024-205 onwards the EUfactcheck programme will offer two different ‘tracks’ for EJTA member schools to participate.
* Individual schools can still use the EUfactcheck website as a platform to publish their students’ factchecks. This can be done at any convenient moment throughout the year, that fits the curriculum of the study programme. Please contact the EUfactcheck editorial team.
* Each year another EJTA member school will organise an intensive factchecking week, the EUfactcheck Lab, funded by Erasmus short mobility. Other EJTA member schools are welcome to join with up to 6 students and one teacher (Erasmus Blended Intensive Programme). Please contact the EUfactcheck programme manager for more details. In 2024 the EUfactcheck Lab covered the EU elections, in 2025 the topic is ‘Climate Reporting’.
EUfactcheck, an initiative of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) fights mis- and disinformation about European policies and topics. Journalism students from all over Europe factcheck claims and statements made by politicians and others and rate them. Our focus is not to debunk fake news but to give correct information to the reader.
The statement to be reviewed originates from the website of the fashion company SHEIN and refers to its publicly communicated efforts in the area of climate protection and decarbonisation: “Our operational teams and supply chain partners are working to reduce the environmental footprint of our products and facilities.” Despite the statement being mostly true, it…
During the plenary session of the German Bundestag on 9 July 2025, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) stated: “Germany accounts for approximately 1 percent of the world’s population. We account for roughly 2 percent of the problem in terms of CO₂ emissions. Even if we were all climate-neutral in Germany tomorrow, not a single natural…
In October 2025, Sebastian Kruis, politician for the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), posted a controversial statement on his X profile: “The left says the problem is men. Wrong. The problem is mass migration. Flooding our streets with men from women-hostile cultures = abuse, violence, murder.” The post appeared two months after the murder of…
On October 12, 2025, the talk show “Opinions” on RTR-Belarus made a claim about Ukrainian refugees that turns out to be false: “80% of Ukrainian refugees in Germany do not want to work. In the Netherlands and Poland, the numbers are only slightly better – more than 70% of these guests prefer to remain on…
In an interview with “The Guardian” dated July 2, 2025, Teresa Ribera, Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, comments against the backdrop of the increasing frequency of heatwaves in Europe. On the occasion of the heatwave in the summer of 2025, she states: “They are absolutely terrible temperatures that…
Does a ban on new internal combustion engine cars achieve nothing for the climate? This statement was made by German CDU politician Manuel Hagel in the context of the debate over the planned EU-wide ban on new registrations of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles starting in 2035. Hagel argued that the EU-wide ban on new…
On September 18th 2025, Svenja Schulze, a member of the German Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), made the following statement during the second reading of the 2025 federal budget: “Every two minutes, a person in Germany becomes a victim of domestic violence. Last year alone, there were more than 265,000 affected individuals.” This…
Dominik Kettner, entrepreneur and precious metals expert, and Dieter Bohlen claim in an interview published on 15 November 2025: “Over 270.000 Germans emigrated last year. And we know that these are high achievers: engineers, entrepreneurs, doctors.” (time stamp: 28:05) According to Bohlen, the reason for the emigration is the dissatisfaction of Germans due to the…
As part of the Dutch Formal Budget Presentation in September 2025, the Finance Minister of the Netherlands, Eelco Heinen, said that poverty in the Netherlands has gone down. Though still many people are at risk to slide into poverty and the severity of poverty increases, the claim turns out to be true. Behind this statement…
In June 2025, Alice Weidel, leader of the radical right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), stated that mass migration had not helped the German labour market, had not alleviated the pension crisis and, on the contrary, had overburdened the social system. These statements are in line with the broader rhetoric of the AfD, and are…
Misinformation and disinformation aren’t new phenomena in our society, but in this digital age, they’ve become nearly impossible to escape. Every day, on every social media platform, fake news stories circulate faster than fact-checkers can debunk them. One viral post might claim that Starbucks sponsored a controversial political convention, while another spreads gossip about a…
News outlets have been facing the rise of fake news in the past couple of years. Audiences and especially younger audiences are starting to avoid news completely. The Reuters Institute found in its annual survey that more and more people are avoiding news because it feels too negative or too overwhelming. People are choosing what…
Fake news has always existed, but with the rise of the Internet and social media, it spreads today more quickly and widely than ever. For this reason, fact-checking — the verification of the accuracy of statements, declarations, images or news — has become more and more central in the modern information landscape. However, fact-checking can…
In the digital age, truth travels slower than rumor. Fact-checking initiatives can expose misinformation, but they face an unexpected obstacle: those who already believe the falsehoods rarely change their minds. Why doesn’t evidence always win over conviction? The contemporary information environment has transformed the way societies understand truth. While digital platforms have made access to…
It is indeed true that fact-checking political claims often seems like an impossible task. Politicians sometimes tend to twist facts, throw around accusations or take figures out ofcontext. Populist politicians are the best in this club, and they are the ones who make the fact checker’s job so much more difficult. But we must never…
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed!” These are the words that were blasting through the radio on Halloween in 1938. “War of the Worlds” interrupted the news bulletin and music to declare that aliens were invading the earth. It was theatrical, melodramatic and spectacular. You could call it…
Being first is one of the driving forces behind journalism. Beating the competition is what many journalists strive for, but that sometimes means the work is not done properly. This has consequences for the media in general, as it undermines public trust. Yet there is another way for journalists to distinguish themselves from the competition,…
Combating fake news involves more than simply checking facts; it requires careful consideration of when correction is helpful and when it is counterproductive. Due to the illusory truth effect, people often remember the core of a message, while the nuances fade. When you scroll through social media, it seems as if everyone is speaking at…
In recent years, vegan and vegetarian products have become more than just food choices, but the lifestyle statements. Supermarkets are filled with “eco-friendly,” “cruelty-free,” and “plant-based” labels that promise a greener, more ethical future. But behind these feel-good slogans lies a powerful marketing strategy that often simplifies complex environmental realities. The “green” image has become…
Over the last 20 years, veganism and vegetarianism have shifted from niche dietary choices to a whole cultural movement. What used to be a personal food preference became a guide to a lifestyle that cares about health, but also respects the environment, animal welfare and sustainability. Questions like “Are they healthier or restrictive?”, “Environmentally essential…
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.
By January-February 2019 a manual with guidelines and tips & tricks was published. In February 2020 a second Bootcamp will be organised in Ljubljana, with financial help from the Evens Foundation. This Train the Trainer focused on Central Eastern European countries, some new schools joined this project.
During corona the EJTA-schools continued to verify claims and publish fact checks. Now we are looking ahead to the 2024 EU elections.
For information about the EUfactcheck project please contact the programme manager: carien.touwen@hu.nl
