EUfactcheck #10 ‘EU Elections 2024’

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.

Latest fact-checks

fact checking

Mostly false: “The reason the USA show so many cases is that they test more”

Donald Trump’s Twitter posting on 9 July 2020 establishes a correlation between the corona tests performed in a country and the confirmed Covid-19 cases in that country. Explicitly, he claims for the USA: “For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as…

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Mostly true: “Twice as many men die from coronavirus than women”

In a headline on April 5, 2020, the Copenhagen Post, an English-language publication in Denmark, wrote that “Twice as many men dead from coronavirus as women.” In the article itself, the publication sources the claim from a report released by Statens Serum Institut, an official institution operated under the Danish Ministry of Health that aims…

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False: Croatia is one of the most tolerant countries in the world

According to an article published in the online version of Croatian daily newspaper ‘Večernji list’, titled “List of the most tolerant countries in the world has been published. Where is Croatia?”, the country is very highly ranked. However, the study quoted in the article uses the world “inclusiveness” and does not mention “tolerance” anywhere. Therefore,…

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fact-check uncheckable

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.…

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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 …

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fact checking

Mostly false: French women are using code word “mask-19″at pharmacies to escape domestic violence during lockdown

Domestic violence cases have jumped by 30 per cent during lockdown in France. Being confined at home with abusive partners increases the risk to victims. A TV report on Channel One Russia, covering the situation in France, included the claim that using code word “mask-19” is a common practice among French women to let people…

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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…

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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…

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fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: Religious and political leaders claim that same-sex marriage is the reason for corona

Worldwide many influential religious and political leaders are linking the coronavirus to the legislation of same-sex marriage. They claim that the outbreak of the pandemic is the punishment and reckoning of God. These statements are uncheckable by nature, but to show how widespread this kind of misinformation is, EUfactcheck gives an overview of the different…

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Group photo EUFACTCHECK 240119

The EUFACTCHECK project

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.

Our history

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 

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