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, hosted by EJTA member Hogeschool Utrecht, the Netherlands. The next year EJTA member Universitat Autonoma Barcelona in Spain offered the EUfactcheck Lab on ‘Climate Change’. In 2026 the topic is Press Freedom. In the first week of May students from 7 EJTA schools meet at Jade University in Wilhelmshaven.
EUfactcheck, an initiative of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) fights mis- and disinformation about policies and topics in Europe. Journalism students from all over Europe factcheck claims and statements made by politicians and others public figures, and rate them as true or false. Our focus is to give correct information and context to the reader.
Thierry Baudet, a Dutch politician, claims that less than 2% of the people infected with the coronavirus experience symptoms. He made his claim on the 10th of January 2021 in the late-night TV show Op1. We rate the claim as false. Thierry Baudet is the front man of the political party Forum voor Democratie (Forum…
German MEP Joachim Kuhs wrote in an article, published on 15 December on his website, that the European Union was giving financial aid to Iran for the persecution of Jews and Christians. It would be 13,000,000 euros, a transfer described as “humanitarian aid”. The claim turns out to be uncheckable. Joachim Kuhs is a German…
This factcheck examines the origin and authenticity of the statement “Bulgaria has stopped using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine”, made in an AlJazeera article. It turns out that the claim is TRUE.This topic is of extremely high importance for the health situation in Europe but more so for Bulgaria – the reactions towards the introduction of…
Bloomberg.com states that “Last month, the bloc leaders unanimously agreed on a common vaccine certification scheme, which is a priority for tourism-dependent countries like Greece and Cyprus.”
On March 25th, 2021, Laura Sachslehner, a member of the Viennese city parliament (ÖVP, Austria’s Peoples Party), Laura Sachslehner, posted a video excerpt of her speech claiming that “attacks on police officers are an everyday occurence in Vienna“. The politician does not cite any source to support her statement. Her claim is uncheckable. Laura Sachslehner’s…
On 24th of November 2020, the German aid organization of the Protestant Church Brot für die Welt made a statement about domestic violence against women. In a press release they stated according to the United Nations (UN) women’s organization UN Women the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in domestic violence against women…
In a Dutch news article of late February, Russia expert Helga Salemon claims that the Sputnik V corona vaccine is available in just 5 of the 85 regions of Russia. Also, she claims that the vaccine is better available for the so-called elite than for other people. These claims appear to be not completely true.…
At the beginning of January, VOX, a Spanish far-right party, issued a statement in which they blamed the current government’s immigration policies for making Spain’s coasts “the principal entrance for illegal immigration in Europe”. The release is chronologically connected to the massive arrival of irregular migrants to the Canary Islands, where the regional authorities were…
In the first national election debate, broadcasted by RTL4, leaders of political parties in the Netherlands were asked to take a stance on several important issues. One of the statements, about climate change was: “In order to achieve the climate goals the Netherlands must build new nuclear power plants”. Conservative parties such as the VVD (liberal party), the PVV (nationalist party)…
In a press release on February 24th, 2021, the right wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) stated that around 20 percent of illegal migrants who are picked up by the border police in the Austrian state Burgenland “are bringing the coronavirus along to Austria.“ The statement is mostly false. The FPÖ-statement refers to unnamed police sources…
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
