On 28 February the Dutch minister of finance and leader of the Christian democrat party CDA, Wopke Hoekstra, participated in an election debate broadcast by RTL. During this debate, he stated that the costs of Dutch healthcare exceed 100 billion euros. In a response on Twitter, member of Parliament Fleur Agema, number 2 on the…
Journalism students Sam Blom and Engeline Keizer recently came across a quote of Molly Scott-Cato. She was a member of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom before they withdrew themselves from the European Union. On the day she had to give up her seat in the Parliament, she stated: “We must keep the dream alive,…
Amnesty International published an article on April 3, 2019 on the flawed legal system in Scandinavian countries. “The law leaves victims of sexual violence out in the cold.” We checked whether Amnesty International’s article on the flawed legal system, when it comes to rape, is correct. Little has changed since then in the Scandinavian countries.
Writers Julia Harder and Gwen Rochat, Journalism students at Windesheim University Zwolle, The Netherlands, noticed a tweet from the Icelandic Prime Minister, saying Iceland is the frontrunner in gender equality. In making this factcheck, we realized there is no yes/no answer to our question: the situation is far more complex. For example, we expected that…
Monique Boutrand, a French central administration officer and expert on ageing issues, states in an article in Le Monde that letting retired people stay in their own homes will protect them better against future pandemics than when they live in retirement homes. This claim is uncheckable.
“We have tripled the testing capacity of potential coronavirus patients! If a few days ago we could make 600 tests per day on average, today we can test approximately 1700 patients.” This claim by Romania’s vice prime minister Raluca Turan turns out to be mostly false.
A retired Finnish politician, Reijo Tossavainen of The Finns Party, claimed in a tweet on the 19th of April that “Corona masks are recommended everywhere else but in Finland”. This claim turns out to be false.
It’s a time of crisis. The outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is gripping the world. At the moment we still know very little about this virus, which lives under several names. One thing we all hope is that the virus will disappear as quickly as it has spread around the world. According to Dutch politician…
AWAITING ELECTION RESULTS WE REPOST OUR MOST QUOTED FACT-CHECK On March the 4th Dutch leader of the right-wing Forum for Democracy Thierry Baudet reacted to a statement by liberal politician Rob Jetten about homophobia in The Netherlands. Baudet stated on Twitter: ,,Jetten’s anger about the increased homophobia in The Netherlands is justified, but he doesn’t…
With great enthusiasm we started the European Factcheck project this winter. Working together with 19 J-schools in 15 European countries is interesting. Besides that, we underline the bigger aim of this project: teaching students verification skills to become eager journalists to make ‘a better world’. Students don’t always like doing research but when you say…