In March 2021 students from 18 EJTA-schools start fact checking with fresh energy and new inspiration. With renewed formats and more cross-national collaboration projects we hope to surprise you and keep our critical public alert on pan-European topics.
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…
On February the 24th the Irish minister of Education Norma Foley of the party Fianna Fáil made a statement about antigen testing at schools. “The World Health Organization does not recommend antigen testing in schools.” Her claim is mostly false. The Education minister stated in a radio interview with RTÉ radio 1 that the WHO…
A prominent and internationally recognized Croatian scientist Mr Miroslav Radman was interviewed in one Croatian evening TV news called RTL Direkt. He was commenting on the COVID-19 situation in Croatia and said how he could not understand why there was so much panic since “we have 967 fewer deaths than last year“, a claim which…
I had five missed calls and several unread messages from my mom reading – “Jano, if you love me, please don’t go to the movie premiere”. I received the messages on November 8th, 2019. She was asking me not to go to see “And then we danced”, a movie directed by Levan Akin about youngsters …
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an overwhelming impact on every aspect of our lives, including drug use and supply, as is recognised by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in its annual Drug Report. Like any other sector, the drug market has faced its setbacks due to the coronavirus. Nonetheless, users…
The Head of the trade branch of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce claims people can safely go visit Austria’s retail shops during the pandemic without facts undermining his statement. On October 27th, Rainer Trefelik, spokesperson for the trading branch in Austria’s Chamber of Commerce, sent out a press release, in which he claimed: “There is…
While working on the claim “Russian news services advertise Covid-19 demonstrations in Germany and dramatize them”, we came across some difficulties. Find out more in the Video. RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Feline Schütte (Text), Jasmin Keller (Visualisation), Annika Reinker (Illustration & Voiceover) Leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions in the box below. Take note: your…
On May 22, 2020, the PIQUE Magazine, an English-language publication in Canada, wrote in an opinion piece by journalist Andrew Mitchell that “Statistically, men are 17 times more likely than women to murder someone”. However, the author did not provide any links to statistics: there are no illustrations, nor did he offer any further evidence.…
“A toxic alien is taking over Russia”, is the headline of an opinion piece in The New York Times on October 3. According to her, hogweed is an extremely poisonous plant, dangerous not only for people, but also for local flora, and the territory occupied by hogweed in the Moscow region alone is 270 square miles, but…
The corona crisis brings the market into an imbalance. It seems as if the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes is proving itself more clearly than ever before! RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Noemi Schäfer, Anneke Blaas, Jade Hochschule, University of Applied Sciences, Wilhelmshaven, Germany Also read the related fact check: ‘Mostly True: German newspaper claims…
We studied 3 news portals, providing information about COVID-19 to check how factual they are and evaluate how news is told.
“We have only one enemy and it is the virus. Only research can overcome it with more and more cures and a vaccine”, the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella said on the 26th of October inaugurating “The Days of Research”, an initiative promoted by Airc (Italian Association for Cancer Research). While Europe is…
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.
At the EJTA Teachers’ Conference in Dortmund (October 2019) practical details were discussed and a new publication schedule was created for autumn 2019.
By January-February 2019 a manual with guidelines and tips & tricks will be published and on 13-14 February 2020 a second Bootcamp will be organised in Ljubljana, with financial help from the Evens Foundation. This Train the Trainer will be focussing on Central Eastern European countries, but also on new participants that want to publish on the platform.
All the information about this event: nadia.vissers@ap.be
“What is this politician saying??” Did you read or hear a politician or public figure make a questionable claim? Send us an email with the claim and maybe we will fact-check it.
Please include the source (url and date) where you found the claim.
