This winter season students from the EJTA journalism schools will work together in cross-national teams on fact checks and blogs. A variety of European topics will be addressed: polarisation, climate change, migration, defence budgets and more. Follow us here or on our Twitter and 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.
In a headline on Friday 19 June 2020 Belgian public broadcaster VRT NWS wrote that COVID-19 may cause more severe symptoms to people with blood type A. According to the article, people with this blood group therefore run a higher risk of serious symptoms when infected with the coronavirus. This conclusion came from an international…
The leader of the Slovenian National Party (SNS), Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, stated that there are 400 employees at the Ministry of Culture and that almost 30 years ago there were only around 40. The number of employees claimed during the special session of the Slovenian Parliament Jelinčič’s, is almost two times bigger than the actual…
In an interview with Stern.de, German economist Claudia Kemfert claims that international studies show that, for example, a male author benefits more from a scientific paper than a female author. This claim can be classified as “True”. The interview with Ms. Kemfert was published as part of a campaign by the German medium Stern under…
Did Pfizer wait on purpose? After the US elections, a prominent Croatian RTL TV news anchor Zoran Šprajc, made a comment in one of the most watched news shows in Croatia called RTL Direkt, assuming that the bio-pharmaceutical company Pfizer waited on purpose for the end of the elections to publish news about the vaccine…
Greenpeace Slovenia tweeted via their account on 27 October 2020, claiming that “It’s official now – the solar energy is the cheapest source of energy in history!”. This is mostly true. Slovenian Greenpeace organization posted on their Twitter account stating that solar energy is from now on officially the cheapest source of energy in history.…
The Belgian news service “De Morgen” claimed that there’s at least 30 times more plastic on the bottom of the ocean than on the surface. The news service is referring to a study that took place at the Australian coast. Research if the claim can be applied to our European sea waters however, found proof…
The German News Show “Tagesschau“ claimed that after Brexit Referendum Brits move to an EU country. Although our research proved the fact true, we decided to classify the claim as mostly true because there are several Brits who left the UK before Brexit or had other reasons to leave the country. Due to the upcoming…
Flemish weekly Knack published an article on 22 October which explained that Belgium remains the biggest entrance gate for cocaine, in the whole of the European Union. More interesting was the fact that this statement was made about seizures of heroin: “The increase in seizures of heroin in the EU is mainly due to an…
In an interview published on the 15th of November by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the EP President, David Sassoli claimed: “The European Union has got 6 different vaccines, each of which will ensure 200 million doses”. According to official European Commission press releases, the EC reached 5 agreements with the pharmaceutical companies related to…
Prominent internationally recognized Croatian scientist Miroslav Radman claims that in Croatia there are 967 fewer deaths ”at this time“ compared to last year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. While Mr Radman does not specify in his claim to what period he specifically is referring to, stats from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics – which he quotes…
Italy’s intelligence services warn of increasing violence against immigrants
The number of attacks on migrants has increased in Italy. Matteo Salvini is accused of this. Also, he is accused in connections with Russia.
News is everywhere, in these times everybody is a journalist. You can start your own newsblog or pick up your phone and make a video about a popular subject. Therefore it is hard for traditional media to compete with these free sources. But are they just as correct as our beloved newspaper? News is there…
The second report on the EU Fact Check concerns a publication on the risk of cyber-attacks, ahead of the European elections next May. We have chosen this subject because it is a matter of broader interest and involves state governments, especially in Europe, giants of digital services, public opinion, and the media. It is of…
It isn’t enough for us to feel that we are EU citizens. We also need some concrete ways to get our voices heard. We were born after 1995 when Finland joined the EU, so we have lived our whole lives as EU citizens. It doesn’t always feel like that because decision-making feels very distant. In…
Analysing the speech of Cristian Escribano and Sergio Santamaría at the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament was not easy, so we divided the task in different stages. First of all, we decided to split the group, in order to make things easier. The first part of the group took care of the context…
Take a look behind the scenes of our article on the place of nutrition in exposure to endocrine disruptors. From the choice of the subject to the publication of the article, through the meetings with the experts, we tell you the main stages of our reflection in drawings.
We, as journalism students, love the fact that we can fact-check news and claims. A good article or news item stands or falls by its fact-check. But if you want to do a good check, it is quite difficult to get involved with the right people and the right reports. Certainly for a journalism student.…
The news came unexpected in mid-January. The 83-year-old entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime minister of Italy, will run for a seat in the European parliament at the general elections due to be held on May 26th. It’s the last coup de theatre from a man who his adversaries have considered many times as politically…
It is generally believed that «fake» is the product of new technologies but it can also be traced that the waves of «fake news» come with populism. The US elections vividly demonstrate this phenomenon. In one of «The Guardian»`s recent articles «How rising populism could shake up European elections» it is stated that future elections…
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
