EUfactcheck #10 ‘EU Elections 2024’

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.

Latest fact-checks

Mostly true: “More Dutch weed farms in foreign countries”

On the 3rd of February 2019, several newspapers including Metro reported that more weed farms with Dutch characteristics were being discovered in countries across Europe. The articles were written due to the report from the investigative journalism programme Reporter Radio on Dutch radio station NPO Radio 1. The claim seems to be mostly true. In…

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Mostly true: “Kosovo’s import tariffs are a clear violation of CEFTA”

The Dutch newspaper Trouw published an article on February 1st about import tariffs of 100 percent on Serbian products like milk. According to Trouw, this is problematic, since the imposed tariffs are – according to the EU – a direct violation of the regional Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA). Our findings suggest this is…

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fact-check uncheckable

Uncheckable: “Conventional menstrual pads are made up of 90% plastic materials”

The Natracare brand of organic skin protection claims on its website that conventional menstrual pads are made of “90% plastic”. An unverifiable figure, but likely.   “Did you know conventional menstrual pads are made up of 90% plastic materials?!” The brand Natracare, a pioneer in organic sanitary pads, uses this astounding figure to appeal to…

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Mostly true: “The way Facebook works is simple: the more money you spend, the wider your audience”

During elections, some candidates buy advertisements on Facebook to increase the visibility of their posts. Some see this as necessary to gain the upper hand in an election. In an election period, do wealthy candidates have an advantage thanks to Facebook? “The way Facebook works is simple: the more money you spend, the wider your…

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fact checking

Mostly false: “France doesn’t have the means to accomodate more migrants”, according to “Yellow Jacket” Damien Rieu

The signing of the Global Compact for Migration was greeted with many comments. Damien Rieu, an activist with the Génération Identitaire movement, “estimates” that France already spends 4.5 billion euros on immigration. He’s basing his figures on Nadine Morano statement.

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Group photo EUFACTCHECK 240119

The EUFACTCHECK project

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.

Our history

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 

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