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.
“Nobody has died because of contamination. I mean, I do not want to create a health public alarm, because we are not at that level”, said Isabel Díaz Ayuso, President of the Community of Madrid in an interview in CadenaSER, a Spanish national radio broadcaster, on the 1st of January 2020. Her allegation, that nobody…
The information that South Korea ratified free trade agreement with Britain was published by several Russian news agencies: TASS, Rambler, Regnum and the others on October 28 and 29, 2019. It is reported that South Korea’s parliament ratified a trade deal with Britain signed on August 22, 2019. The agreement set to take effect automatically…
“Not so long ago there was an incident in Romania, in which a ship full of sheep turned over and the animals were left on their own’’, said the MEP for Renew Europe/VVD, Jan Huitema during his speech about animal transport within, to and from the EU on 19 December. ‘’No action was taken, and…
How did the UK end up in the confusing mess that is Brexit and who decided that they should take this road? On January 9, The British newspaper The Independent claimed in their article Brexit: Don’t settle for ‘isolation’, EU president tells Britain’s youth covering EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to London…
Pastor Gábor Iványi, rival of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, has published a text the “Advent Statement” in which he denounces Orban’s policy. In an interview, he criticizes this “Christian country” for having a constitution in which one can be put in prison for being homeless. He is right. In the Guardian article «…
A claim that to many may sound absurd and disturbing spread across the Dutch media-landscape in November 2019. According to EU environmental laws domestic cats should be banned from roaming outside since they are a danger to wildlife. This was originally claimed by two law-researchers of the university of Tilburg in an article in the…
The 18th of December 2019, the European parliamentarian Silvia Sardone, belonging to the far-right group named “Identity and Democracy”, published a statement on her official Facebook page, openly attacking the Municipality of Milan, which is currently guided by Democratic Party, main League rival, claiming that “90% of income support (in Milan) is destined to immigrants”.…
The Belgian quality newspaper De Morgen published on 7 January 2020 an article with the title ‘One family of asylum seekers retroactively received more than 90,000 euros in child allowance’. In the article, Flemish Minister of Welfare Wouter Beke (CD&V) gives some numbers on the retroactive receipt of child allowance. Is the number correct and…
The Croatian online news outlet Telegram.hr published an article alleging that the Croatian Government allocates millions of HRK each year for the development of local communities and that predominantly it is the Catholic Church that wins the competition. The claim is highlighted in the title of the article, labelled as an ”exclusive“. Investigative journalist Andrej…
Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf published on 7 January an article in which it stated that Euro 95 petrol in Europe is most expensive in the Netherlands. This news was written using research from consumer collective United Consumers. CLAIMIs Telegraaf correct by claiming that in the Netherlands you pay the highest amount of money for…
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
