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.
The lobby organization Initiative for Social Market Economy (INSM) published nine facts about the EU on their website. One of them is “One third of EU exports to South Korea are made in Germany”, which seemed to be true. The INSM is financed by employers’ associations and, according to its own statement, acts independently of political parties. As…
According to published research by Chinese scientists, human testicles are a potential target for the coronavirus infection COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The researchers found that the ACE2 receptor, through which this virus enters cells, is highly expressed in the testes.
Russia Today DE claims that there have been only four OSCE-observers at the German Bundestag elections this year, whereas there have been 59 at the 2017 elections. Though the numbers were not incorrect, RT DE left out crucial information about how they were formed, drastically changing the bottom line and possible interpretations of the claim.…
The Pandora Papers have revealed tax evasion from around the world. Peter De Roover, a Belgian politician, tweeted on October 7th: “The government doesn’t lose money because of tax evasion. She simply compensates through higher tax assessments on others. In fraud, the good taxpayer is the victim, not the government.” His claim is false. “RESEARCH…
On August 8th 2021, Alice Weidel, member of the German parliament and part of a right-winged populist political party, tweeted about Germany’s contributions to the European Union. She stated that the overall payments added up to almost 20 billion Euros, twice as much as France has paid. The claim turns out to be mostly true. According…
On 6th of September 2021, the former chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz made a statement during an interview with the Austrian TV-Channel ORF where he outlined that Austria is spending over one billion euros on development cooperation and humanitarian aid. He also said that since he is in charge the money Austria spends in this…
On the 29th of September, Belgian politician Bart De Wever (N-VA) tweeted how bad the legalization of cannabis would be. Based on a recent Canadian study (Statistics Canada) , legalization resulted in more cannabis use in the country. Canada being the only country in the world, besides Uruguay, where cannabis is completely legal. Does legalization…
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission since 2019, stated on the 15th September 2021 in her speech in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg that more than 70 percent of the European adult population were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This claim turns out to be true. Every September the President of…
The British news service The Guardian claimed that “Four in 10 young people fear having children due to climate crisis“. The news service is referring to an international study that surveyed young people in 10 countries. The claim came out to be mostly true. For the article The Guardian used findings from a study that…
An article titled “Asylum seekers massively fleeing from Croatia” published in Croatian news outlet Večernji list made a claim referring to the refugees who come to this country, saying that: ”Just little bit over than 10 percent of them remain in Croatia.” The claim turns out to be mostly true. Croatia has come to be…
A female quota could be a way to achieve more equality between men and women but it’s a controversial topic. We’ve compiled arguments that speak for and against a female quota. Achieving full equality of rights and opportunities between men and women is a global issue. There has been an ongoing discussion in several countries…
The Brexit has impact on the British economy and the relation to the European Union (EU). Strong trade partners, like Germany, are also challenged with a possible “Hard Brexit”. Statistics provide economic data for importing and exporting goods from and to the EU. RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Karina Stark Leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions…
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…
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
