Blog: Advice for journalism students: “Look out the f*cking window and find out the truth”
Rain or Shine. Copyright Noah Moeys, 2021
True: “Only 4% of Dutch nature reserves are in good condition and the number of wild animals has halved since 1990”
“Only four per cent of Dutch nature reserves are in good condition. The number of wild animals has halved since 1990,” states Dutch political party D66 in its election programme for 2021. With these statements, D66 tries to convince Dutch citizens to support the party in the upcoming national elections. D66 promises to create more…
Mostly true: “The Netherlands has one of the largest social housing sectors in Europe but the waiting list for social housing averages nine years”
Dutch political party VVD states in its current election programme (2021) that the Netherlands has one of the largest social rental sectors in Europe but that the waiting lists for social housing average nine years. The party promises to make social housing more available to people with smaller incomes by stimulating richer people to move…
True: “There’s basically a whole tier missing from the UK welfare state.”
On March 26th, Jon Stone, a policy correspondent at The Independent UK wrote a series of tweets in which he claimed that select normal EU unemployment benefits are similar to what the UK is doing for those who cannot work due to the COVID-19 crisis. “One thing I think many British people may not understand…
Uncheckable: “Every euro that we give towards the EU budget, 12 euros will be returned to the Dutch business community”
Dutch politicians are regularly seen in late night talk shows, especially during the corona crisis. In the Dutch talk show ‘Op1’ party leader Rob Jetten from the social-liberal party D66 took part in a discussion and tried to explain how important the proposed Merkel-Macron Corona virus relief agreement is for the EU and the Netherlands.…
Blog: Does smoking protect against corona virus?
Since the beginning of the corona virus crisis many theories on how to stop, slow down or cure the virus have emerged. Last month there were more than 60,000 cases in France and some studies on some patients has made a lot of noise especially in the press. The debate was opened in France following…
False: “Gender violence is a big lie. […] it’s like denying day or night”.
Javier Ortega-Smith, the Secretary-General of the Spanish far-right-wing party, Vox called gender violence a ‘big lie’ after the celebration of the new judicial year in the Community of Madrid, in September 9th of 2019. There was a significant emphasis on gender violence in that celebration and this made him state that ‘violence is violence and …
Blog: Different views on the “biggest consumer of powder cocaine in Europe”.
On 18 May 2020, the influential British music and events magazine Mixmag published an online article on its website explaining that Lawrence Gibbons, president of the NCA’s Drugs Department, had named the United Kingdom and London – the country’s capital – as the biggest consumer of cocaine in all of Europe. Mixmag regularly reports on…
Mostly True: “If universities shift online, we risk more poorer students dropping out.”
In a column published by The Guardian, former universities minister Chris Skidmore makes the claim that there’s a higher risk for poorer students dropping out if universities shift online. This article—based on a study from 2017—was posted 4 May, 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis forcing many universities to close and offer fully…
Mostly true: Economist claims that the VW-scandal wouldn’t have happened if women were in charge
Monika Schnitzer, a German Professor of Economics at Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, stated in an interview with the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on May 5th: “My assumption is that the manipulation of the diesel engines and this fraud on the customer wouldn’t have happened if women have had a say in the top-level management.”. She also claims…