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 tweet dated April 2, Gilbert Collard published a post about the rumour of a French decree, that would authorize euthanasia during the coronavirus period. And to back up his words, he quoted an interview with surgeon Joseph Hardy on Radio Shalom the same day. The doctor was worried about a new drug, Rivotril.
Dominik Nepp, non-acting Vice Mayor of Vienna and head of the city’s far-right Freedom Party, stated in a speech that “not a single cent” of public funds meant to support Austrian small businesses during the Covid-19-outbreak had reached them as of May 1st. This statement is false. Labour Day, May 1st, in Vienna. Austrian politicians…
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.
The international newspaper “Newsweek” published on 25 of October 2019 a topic titled “Female CEOs face ‘greater penalties’ than male CEOs for ethical transgressions”. The claim turns out to be uncheckable. In the article reporter Rosie McCall tries to prove the statement using the survey “How Leader Gender Influences External Audience Response to Organizational Failures“.…
The President of European Parliament David Sassoli claims on Twitter that the old European Stability Mechanism (ESM) doesn’t exist anymore and it has become a fund that all member countries can take advantage of without conditionalities, to cope with medical emergency caused by Covid-19 pandemic. The claim seems to be his remark following the Eurogroup…
On the 13th of January, Kathleen Van Brempt stated in the Belgian broadsheet De Standaard that Australian cars emit on average 45% more CO2 than their European counterparts. Van Brempt is a Member of European parliament for the Flemish socialist party sp.a. Her claim is true. In the European Parliament, Kathleen Van Brempt is responsible…
The British morning television presenter Eamonn Holmes recently said on air that the media in the United Kingdom did not know for sure that 5G does not cause covid-19.
In the prominent Dutch early-evening talk show De Wereld Draait Door (The World Keeps on Turning/DWDD) on Friday 20 March Rutger Bregman, historian and author, stated that long-term loneliness is as damaging to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
“Migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina are massively moving towards Croatia! UN arbitrated, countries cannot return ‘climate migrants!”, states the title of an article published in the Croatian online news outlet Paraf.hr. The article makes a connection between the UN’s ruling that governments cannot return migrants to domicile countries where their lives are threatened by climate…
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…
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
