This spring season students from the EJTA journalism schools will once again check statements about topics in the upcoming EU elections. In their home universities and in cooperation with students from other EJTA schools they will produce fact checks, analyses and blogs. We expect to publish the first posts in early April. Follow us here or on X and on our Facebook page.
EUfactcheck, an initiative of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) fights misinformation about European policies and topics. Journalism students from all over Europe factcheck claims made by politicians and others and rate them. Our focus is not to debunk fake news or disinformation but to give correct information to the reader.
“The US and China have been the ones that have been innovators, and leading in investment into AI”, EU law professor Anu Bradford said. In April, she made the statement in an article discussing the European Union’s approach to artificial intelligence in the newspaper Financial Times. Research shows her claim is mostly true. In April,…
Azerbaijani MP Agil Abbas stated in his interview to Baku TV: “Some world powers play politics and argue that virus came out of bats. How come nothing came out of bats in last thousand years but only yesterday?” he mentioned. The claim turns out to be false. WHO-convened global study about origins of SARS-Cov-2, researches…
On the 4th of February 2021, Europêche released a statement on their website that claimed 99% of the landings from EU-managed stocks were fished sustainably. Research shows the claim is mostly false. Europêche is an organization representing vessels and fishermen from ten European countries. They promote fluent communication between the European institutions and the fishing…
Last month, Börje Ekhom claimed that “Europe is too slow with the roll-out of 5G” in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde. The CEO of the Swedish networking and telecommunications company Ericsson expects that Europe will need two years to reach the current level of China. Research shows Europe is slower in rolling…
Nicolas Bay, vice-president of the European Identity and Democracy Group, claimed during the plenary session of 19 January that more than eight out of ten migrants to are adult men. This claim is based on an official Frontex press release and turns out to be true. “Though it’s not the whole picture,” says Ciara Bottomley,…
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his country is cutting carbon emissions by 78% by 2035 in what he claims is ‘the most ambitious target in the world’. He made this claim on the 20th of April 2021, days after it was agreed stronger pledges were necessary to tackle climate change. The claim turns…
This fact check examines the origin and authenticity of the statement “Mexico moves to require biometric data from cellphone users“, made in an ABC News article. The article says that Mexico’s Senate passed legislation to require biometric data from everyone who wants to buy a cellphone or use a mobile provider’s services in order to…
In April, Hanne Beirens, director of the Migration Policy Institute appeared on Terzake, a news show aired by the Flemish public broadcast organisation. As she and the television host discussed migrants drowning near the Libyan coast, Beirens mentioned that “Europe gave 700 million euros to Libya in the last six years.” That claim is mostly…
News about foreigners being able to get a free COVID vaccine in Serbia quickly went viral, so much that travel agencies soon started offering travel arrangements for vaccination in Serbia. In April 2021 the regional news cable channel N1 published an article on its web page in which the director of eUprava, Serbia’s official site…
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said: “Trade turnover with the European Union decreased in 2020, if you count the UK, by 21% compared to 2019.” The claim was published in the news outlet RT in 22.3.2021, and it seems to be true. Figure 1: RT article 22nd of March with claim RT is publicly…
The free movement of people is one of the four fundamental rights of the EU. Due to the newly introduced border restrictions across the continent caused by the pandemic of Covid-19, this right cannot be fulfilled as before. Terminologically, the media coverage of the situation has been framed with the use of words with negative…
The most controversial Eurogroups of recent years took place on the last 9th of April: a video conference meeting that brought together all the economic ministers of the EU countries, in which the debate was about which measures should be activated in dealing with Coronavirus pandemic’s emergency. The conference ended relatively soon, there was no…
The Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center opened in Georgia in 2011, with funds from the U.S. Government within the framework of the Cooperative Biological Engagement Program. The purpose of the center is to promote public health through detecting and tackling outbreaks of disease. Though the construction of the center was funded by the U.S.,…
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread very quickly in Italy. From February 21st, when the first case was diagnosed in Codogno (Lodi, Lombardy), more than 143.000 people have suffered from the virus and more than 18.000 have died throughout the country. Scientists calculated the infectiousness rate through the so called R0 factor- which indicates the number…
An outbreak of COVID-2019 pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus was recorded in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. On March 11, the World Health Organization(WHO) declared a coronavirus pandemic in the world. According to Worldometerdata, on April 1, more than 889,213 people were infected worldwide, 188,352 patients were cured, and 44,322 people…
Analysing Vox’s position on gender violence has required us to frame the rise of right-wing movements in Europe, select claims from their leaders in media outlets and use relevant sources –reports by the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary and experts– to debunk their discourses.
During the elections or when important topical issues show up, a lot of factchecks will pop up. Factchecking is a concept that is particularly prevalent in politics. Partly due to Trump and his fake news, factchecking and politics go hand in hand. The checks are often not popular with all politicians, because they make sure that…
Five years ago the European Union adopted a Directive on reducing the consumption of light plastic bags, according to which it is necessary to cut down their consumption from 200 to 90 pieces per person per year by 2019, and down to 40 pieces by 2025. The most rational option is to stop the production…
While analyzing political statements in Croatian media, we discovered that the data we came across tend to be correct but incomplete. Incomplete in a sense that they’re not represented within context. Politicians like to focus on the positive side of their work, unfortunately that’s often at the expense of providing a full picture. Manipulating with…
The UK withdrawal from the European Union implies that after the expiration of the transitional period the EU laws will no longer be applicable to England. Trading with the countries outside the framework of the free trade agreement will be regulated by the World Trade Organization if these countries are its members. Although many agreements…
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
