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.
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…
The information that two inflatable boats with illegal migrants were intercepted by the French coast guard was published by the Russian socio-political, business newspaper Izvestia on October 4, 2019. According to the French Maritime Prefecture of the English Channel and the North Sea, a total of 31 people were brought ashore.
A Croatian political platform called ‘We can!’ held a round table in December 2019 called “Are we all in the same boat?”. The main topic was climate change and its consequences. One of the guests was Mrs Dunja Mazzocco Drvar, meteorologist at the Croatian commercial TV channel RTL, interviewed by a Croatian online news outlet…
Dutch broadcaster BNNVARA published an Instagram story stating that, in the Netherlands, every year 119.000 children are maltreated. The story was part of a special broadcast on child maltreatment in The Netherlands. Is the number correct and in the right context? The Instagram story and broadcast do not mention the source of the number of…
On Twitter Royal Dutch Shell on November 18th 2019, announced that they will support SkyNRG, a supplier and distributor of sustainable aviation fuel, in assisting them to develop Europe’s first sustainable aviation fuel production plant through the Board Now program. In both the Tweet and the accompanying press release Shell states that concerning the lower…
Zuhal Demir, minister of Environment for the Flemish government and affiliated to the Flemish nationalist party N-VA, states in the newspaper ‘De Morgen’ that the air quality in Flanders has evolved positively over the years. She claims that in response to an open letter in Flemish newspaper ‘De Standaard’ from journalist Nick Meynen, in which…
Dagmar Belakowitsch, parliament delegate to the National Council of Austria, published a press release on November 28th, 2019, stating that the Iraqi Minister of Defence had faked his Swedish citizenship and claimed social benefits under a false name. This allegation is correct. In a press release Dagmar Belakowitch, Freedom Party delegate to the Austrian parliament,…
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
