In light of the war in Ukraine the students from the EJTA journalism schools will focus more on background publications and less on factchecks, this seventh season of EUfactcheck. It is very difficult to fact-check war claims when primary sources are hard to find or impossible to reach. Our ‘Uncheckable claims’ show just how complicated it is to unravel the truth. So we will instead show you the context of fact-checking: in our blogs, interviews and media analyses.
The invasion of Ukraine has made it impossible for EJTA and EUfactcheck to further continue our cooperation with Russian journalism schools.
On November 20, 2020, a video appeared on the Georgian TikTok and Facebook, claiming that Italians had stormed a mall and, in this way, protested the demand for green passports. One of the sources of the video is a Georgian user, who published the video with hashtags #nocovidfascism #nogreenpassports #nocovidpassports #nodiscriminationagainstnon-vaccinated #nocovidterror #nogreenpass. A video posted…
On August 15th 2021, the German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) claimed on Facebook that postal voting in Germany is “not a solution, but a problem” and that every election year has significant cases of electoral fraud. In the German federal election 2021, AfD member Björn Höcke called the people to go to…
The German right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) ranks among the harshest critics of the countries refugee policy. In November 2021, the representative spokesman of the party, Stephan Brandner, released a statement in which he claims that not only urgently needed specialists have been let into the country. We rate this claim as mostly true.…
Harald Schwarz, Professor for energy distribution and high voltage technology at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus – Sentencer, stated in an article released on 7th May 2021 on tagesschau.de that in 2023 Germany lacks 15 to 20 gigawatt of secured power output. This claim turns out to be mostly true. In light of the…
On November 26th, Pedro Sánchez, Spanish prime minister, spoke at “Mujeres Parlamentarias” forum, where he claimed that “Spain has nowadays the most equal chamber of deputies in terms of gender of the European Union, with a total of 166 women in it”. However, Spain does not have the most equal chamber of deputies of the…
On December 14, the Russian news agency INTERFAX.RU published that the Omicron strain of Covid-19 is spreading much faster than other earlier strains that scientists have identified during the pandemic. This statement is true.
The German politician Malte Kaufmann from the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) wants to classify anti-fascist groups as terrorist networks and have them banned. He cites the rising numbers of left-wing extremist crimes in Germany as justification. The claim turns out to be mostly true. The reason for Kaufmann’s claim was an article by…
The director of the organisation Human Rights Watch Germany, Wenzel Michalski, has again criticised the upcoming World Cup in Qatar. He claims that major sporting events never lead to an improvement of human rights in the hosting country. This statement is mostly true. Frequently, major sporting events are held in countries where human rights organisations…
In year 2021 Croatia conducted a population census which happens every ten years. Mr Nenad Pokos, a Croatian demographer and professor, commented on it and said in the interview for the regional news channel N1: “The price of Slovenian register-based census in 2011 was one million euros, and the Croatian traditional census in 2021 cost…
The European Commission is hiding fatal side effects after a corona vaccination – this is what Joachim Kuhs, Member of the European Parliament for the German right-wing populist party AfD, claims. He supports his statement with respectable sources that are right in themselves. However, his interpretation of them is wrong. On October 5, 2021, AfD…
Migration, as soon as that word is mentioned, negative connotations popped into our minds. The media often “accidentally” omits the positive aspects of migration. “Migrants take all our money!”, we hear often. What if that’s not quite the case after all? With the past migratory wave, the word migration has acquired a negative connotation. Countries…
In September 2015, at the 70th session of the General Assembly, The UN General Assembly has set 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 related targets for the international community. The fourth global goal is formulated as “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
On April 23, RBC.ru published that: “Russian Direct Investment Fund compared mortality after vaccination with Sputnik V and other vaccines.” The publication says that the death rate per 1 million people after vaccination with a Russian vaccine is significantly lower than with foreign vaccines. So, for Sputnik, this indicator stands at 2, and the leader…
Isn‘t it great news? Wind energy overtook coal power as the largest energy source in Germany. In our fact check, we confirmed this fact as mostly true. However, wind power is also controversial. What are the downsides? The online news portal of the public broadcasters of Germany,Tagesschau.de subliminally glorifies the rapid rise of wind energy…
“We must expel all illegal immigrants and close our external borders,” expresses Nicolas Bay, vice-president of the European Identity and Democracy Group, during the plenary session of 19 January. Relying on the statistics mentioned in the Frontex press release about irregular migrants, Bay creates the image of an unmanageable flow of people entering Europe without…
Having uncomplicated access to sexual rights is still very difficult these days. We explored the difficulty of accessing SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) in times of the Corona pandemic. The topic of SRHR deals with issues such as sexual health, sexual rights, reproductive health and reproductive rights. These basic human rights include issues…
The right-winged political group in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy (ID), posted the following on their Twitter feed: “Ursula von der Leyen is forcing EU-members to go carbon-neutral whilst taking a private jet for half of her worldwide missions.” The investigation of this claim accusing the European Commission President on January 8th led to…
A first fact-check is certainly not easy, but it has guided these three journalism students to new insights. They have investigated a claim that states that the EU is hiring companies that supply weapons to conflict zones in the Middle East for border control. Which is definitely not some light reading. Thabo: “Watch out for…
Based on our fact check Mostly true : “Catholic Church loses members – Europe-wide”, we examined membership figures from five countries in Europe. Among them, some Catholic strongholds are already named in the original source. Our experience? The ways of the Church are unfathomable. The headlines surrounding the scandals of the Catholic Church are piling…
“It was Easter. On the day of Commemoration of the dead, I went to the cemetery like everyone else. However, unlike others I was holding a lit candle in one hand and sharing posts on my cell phone with the other.” The dissemination of false news is no longer a foreign topic. We all know…
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.
