This winter season students from the EJTA journalism schools will work together in cross-national teams on fact checks and blogs. A variety of European topics will be addressed: polarisation, climate change, migration, defence budgets and more. Follow us here or on our Twitter and 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.
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…
As climate change becomes ever more apparent, calls for action and consistent measures are multiplying. Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), says as part of the launch of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report (EGR21) that to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, we have eight years to nearly halve greenhouse gas…
“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…
Brexit became a reality at the end of 31st December 2020. Depending on the media, perspectives about this event have been different. In this media analysis, we have thoroughly examined nine articles from three leading newspapers in three countries: La Vanguardia (Spain), Le Monde (France) and The Guardian (United Kingdom). These three newspapers were chosen…
In our last FactCheck, we concluded that deputy Yevgeny Stupin was completely wrong in his claim that an average pension size in Latvia is 1000 euros. We have also come across the newest report made by the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation which states that in July 2020 an average pension size…
The pandemic makes the home a (more) dangerous place for many women. We took a closer look at whether the restrictions on social contact and curfews affected the extent of recorded attacks in the form of domestic violence. Violence against women is not an isolated phenomenon. The WHO identifies it as one of the greatest…
On November 26th 2019, Jorge Buxadé, Spanish delegate for the far-right political party VOX at the European Parliament, made a speech in which he affirmed that the current government’s immigration policies are to blame for making Spain’s coasts “the principal entrance for illegal immigration in Europe”. In our fact-check we analysed these assertions to prove…
Rain or Shine. Copyright Noah Moeys, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic is a health crisis that many predicted but the world was never really prepared for. Life as we know it isn’t there anymore. The times of struggle create the favorable environment for the production of bullshit, which in the era of the internet share faster than anything. As an American philosopher Harry…
We have dealt with demeaning responses and complete ignorance. But our fact check journey was a valuable learning experience. And a fun one. Seeking the truth will never get old and it often provides for some great stories. Here is ours. Our world is flooded with information – good and bad, true and false. We…
Croatian media landscape was recently hit by seemingly “great” news about a Croatian amateur film director Mario Šulina winning the prestigious award – Venice Golden Lion. He was awarded for his feature film “Adam” telling the story of a Croatian War Vetaran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the news media did not directly say…
The “online” lecture was supposed to start in 5 minutes, when I accidentally checked news and heard that 4800 cases were reported in the country. I was surprised to enter the lecture while a friend sent me a message on the phone: ‘’Do we have fun somewhere today? I imagined where we could have gone,…
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
