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 Prime Minister of Croatia, Mr Andrej Plenković, who was a member of the European Parliament, proudly states that Croatia and its citizens are progressing and that the situation in the country is not as bleak as it seems. His claim turns out to be mostly false. Croatia has assumed presidency of the Council of…
On Tuesday 31 December, French president Emmanuel Macron gave his speech for the new year on the national TV news. Among his wishes, and retrospective of 2019, he stated that “more than 500,000 jobs were created since May 2017” (the quote is stated at 1.49), this date marking the start of his mandate. So, is…
“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…
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
