In May 2024 the EUfactcheck programme successfully factchecked the EU elections for the second time. From academic year 2024-205 onwards the EUfactcheck programme will offer two different ‘tracks’ for EJTA member schools to participate.
* Individual schools can still use the EUfactcheck website as a platform to publish their students’ factchecks. This can be done at any convenient moment throughout the year, that fits the curriculum of the study programme. Please contact the EUfactcheck editorial team.
* Each year another EJTA member school will organise an intensive factchecking week, the EUfactcheck Lab, funded by Erasmus short mobility. Other EJTA member schools are welcome to join with up to 6 students and one teacher (Erasmus Blended Intensive Programme). Please contact the EUfactcheck programme manager for more details. In 2024 the EUfactcheck Lab covered the EU elections, in 2025 the topic is ‘Climate Reporting’.
EUfactcheck, an initiative of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) fights mis- and disinformation about European policies and topics. Journalism students from all over Europe factcheck claims and statements made by politicians and others and rate them. Our focus is not to debunk fake news but to give correct information to the reader.
In the case of the collapse of Alexei Navalny, Russian officials claim that “pancreatitis, not poison, caused Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to fall ill.” While the EU assumes poisoning, Russian officials are convinced that pancreatitis was the cause. Since no access to medical records is available, the claim is uncheckable”. First of all, a brief…
On 20 October 2020 Slovenian TV presenter Marko Potrč claimed in his Facebook post that the tests performed to detect the presence of the virus (PCR) do not tell if someone is actually infected or even contagious. He said that dr. Lejko Zupanc, infectious disease specialist, also had to admit this on national television. This…
Amnesty International Slovenia tweeted via their account on 23 October 2020, claiming that “Abortion restriction does not prevent abortion, it just makes them less safe”. This was found to be true. Amnesty International Slovenia organization posted on their Twitter account an image with text stating that abortion restriction does not prevent abortion, it just makes…
At the end of 2020, Slovenian parliament passed 780 million euro bill of investments. Member of the Slovenian Parliament Alenka Jeraj stated that Slovenian soldiers do not have the equipment they deserve; they have to wear shoes and helmets in bad condition. The statement was used to justify the large amount of money provided by…
On 1 Octobre 2020, the Dutch edition of Vice magazine claimed that fans of horror movies show better psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. It based its claim on a study conducted by the university of Chicago, Pennsylvania State university and Aarhus university. The claim turns out to be mostly true. The study was conducted…
On 4 November 2020, Zdravko Počivalšek, Slovenian Minister of Economic Development and Technology, tweeted: “The assessments of the international financial institutions show that the measures taken so far have made it possible to maintain social stability and jobs.” We rate this claim as mostly true. In a tweet from the official account of the Slovenian…
In this fact check we looked at one of many highly controversial Tweets about climate change posted by US president Donald J. Trump. In November of 2012 he stated that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”. We have found this claim to…
In October, several newspapers published articles with headlines like “Pope Francis backs same-sex civil unions“. The claim is based on previously undisclosed footage from an interview with Pope Francis in the new documentary “Francesco” which we have watched for our fact check. After extensive research we assess the claim as mostly false. “Francesco” is a…
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation, represented by Sergey Lavrov, the Head of the Ministry, imposed sanctions against Germany and France on the case of Alexey Navalny. This information was reported by the Russian News Agency (TASS) on November 12, 2020. On November 12, 2020, Sergey Lavrov, head of the Ministry of Foreign…
“Generation 0-100: Russian Universities Fail to Offer World Class Education” – our team found an article with this headline on the website of “The National Interest” magazine dated October 29, 2020. Indeed, Russian universities did not manage to get into the top 100 best universities in the world. However, higher educational institutions raised their positions…
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
