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.
They are small, but far from harmless when they end up in the environment. Member of the European Parliament Grace O’Sullivan (The Greens/ EFA) said that 180,000 tonnes of the granules used to produce plastic products get lost in the value chain, harming the biosphere. EUfactcheck discovered that a rather high estimate was chosen from…
In view of the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen had clear words on the German AfD’s plans to leave the European Union. During a speech at the CDU federal party conference on May 8, 2024, von der Leyen said about the right-wing populist party:…
Jorge Buxadé, one of the leaders and the spokesperson of the extreme right-wing Spanish party Vox, claimed that “Barcelona has become the city with the highest crime rate in Spain and is an example of the failure of multiculturalism”. EUfactcheck looked into this claim and the source it was based on, and found out that…
At the start of the European election campaign the leading politician of the Left Party Carola Rackete gave a speech in Berlin. Among other things she accuses the party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of the following: “The AfD is threatening to set fire to our democracy: They are the arsonists who are planning to deport…
At the start of the 2024 European election campaign, German politician Marc Jongen is running for the right-wing populist party AfD. In his campaign speech, he said that the illegal entry of migrants must be stopped in Germany and that migrants who have already entered the country must be returned to their home countries. He…
Kai Mykkänen, Minister of Climate and the Environment (The National Coalition Party – EPP) claimed that Finland voted against the European nature restoration law because of its excessive costs: “According to the Commission’s impact assessment, the costs are the highest in the EU for Finland in relation to the size of its economy.” The claim…
80% of European agricultural funding goes to just 20% of companies. But does three quarters effectively go to only a fifth of companies? EUfactcheck found out that these figures were indeed studied a few years ago. The claim turned out to be correct. On 9 February, Vooruit (Flemish social democrats) politician Bruno Tobback shared a…
Belgian MEP Frédérique Ries (Renew Europe) claimed in the plenary meeting of April 10th 2024, that 30 million European citizens suffer from a rare disease. She made that claim in the context of the biggest pharmaceutical reform Renew Europe puts its shoulder under. Do 30 million Europeans really have a rare disease? According a study…
In the documentary “Trans is a Trend: How an Ideology is Changing Our Country”, published on the German news website NIUS.de, authors Judith Sevinc Basad and Jan A. Karon claim that gender-affirming surgeries in Germany have increased from 120 in 2005 to 2.598 in 2021. They also argue that being trans is a dangerous trend…
In the “Europawahlprogramm 2024” (European Election Program 2024) of the German political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), alleged dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines are highlighted. The program claims a direct connection between these vaccines and excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. This claim turns out to be false. “Due to (…) an alarming excess mortality,…
Social media is having a huge impact on the mental health of Gen Z. Find out if it’s more likely to cause problems or solve them here!
When we started looking for claims that we could fact check, we came across a double interview with two Belgian politicians. One was party chairman Conner Rousseau (Vooruit), a left-wing politician and the other was party chairman Raoul Hedebouw (PvdA), an extreme left-wing politician. While reading the interview, we noticed the harsh words the two…
Introduction and context In a recent factcheck article, our colleagues from the Media University Stuttgart checked the claim of Mr. Nikola Milina, the head of Croatian police, who said that the violent pushbacks at the Croatian-Bosnian border published in October 2021 were an “individual event” and that he didn’t want such incident to “affect the…
To be honest, this last fact-checking has not been the most difficult that we have done. The claim that we chose seemed easy from the very first moment as it was not about any complex topic. Actually, both of us had doubts about whether if it was a good claim with enough base to dig…
September 12, 2021, author Carl Zimmer published in The New York Times the article “A New Company With a Wild Mission: Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth“. A group of scientists led by biologist George Church plans to revive the genome of the Woolly Mammoth and do it within six years. Dr. Church argues that their…
For our factcheck we chose the statement of a local demographer and University of Zagreb professor Nenad Pokos. In an interview for N1 television, he said that Croatia spent 24 million euros on the census in 2021, or 24 times more than Slovenia spent in 2011. He also stressed that Croatia has 2 million more…
An urgent and almost pressing undertone is given by articles such as “The EU countries in comparison: Who vaccinates faster against Covid-19?” by Euronews or “Covid vaccinations – Which country is on the top?” by ZDF which are issued to the broad German-speaking population. It brings up the question: Is this constant comparison of European…
When you work as a journalist you usually deal with a lot of different topics. If you aren’t one of those specialized reporters who cover specific events of a specific subject, then you are one of those who can talk about everything but nothing at the same time. A friend of ours who studies “International…
We examined three news portals that provide information on whether children and adolescents had more hospitalizations before and during the Corona pandemic. The articles always refer to the same primary source, the german Federal Statistical Office. Now let’s look at how different journalists and online media deal with the topic. A lack of scientific quality…
29/11/2030 To Mr. Farage, Our country is in tatters. A political system that allows self-serving opportunists, like yourself and a certain Boris Johnson, has been the downfall of our country. We are currently cut off from the rest of the world, with no routes to trade. I remember when you exclaimed that by leaving the…
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
