In May 2024 the EUfactcheck programme successfully factchecked the EU elections for the second time. From academic year 2024-205 onwards the EUfactcheck programme will offer two different ‘tracks’ for EJTA member schools to participate.
* Individual schools can still use the EUfactcheck website as a platform to publish their students’ factchecks. This can be done at any convenient moment throughout the year, that fits the curriculum of the study programme. Please contact the EUfactcheck editorial team.
* Each year another EJTA member school will organise an intensive factchecking week, the EUfactcheck Lab, funded by Erasmus short mobility. Other EJTA member schools are welcome to join with up to 6 students and one teacher (Erasmus Blended Intensive Programme). Please contact the EUfactcheck programme manager for more details. In 2024 the EUfactcheck Lab covered the EU elections, in 2025 the topic is ‘Climate Reporting’.
EUfactcheck, an initiative of the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) fights mis- and disinformation about European policies and topics. Journalism students from all over Europe factcheck claims and statements made by politicians and others and rate them. Our focus is not to debunk fake news but to give correct information to the reader.
On March 30, 2024, LB.ua reported that the German Bundestag has approved the participation of 35 political parties in the upcoming European Parliament elections. Among the approved parties are the controversial environmental group “The Last Generation”. Lesser-known parties such as the Party of Reason and the Party of Traditional Medical Research for Rejuvenation will also…
In the German “Welt” live TV debate on 11th April 2024 between the right-wing Björn Höcke of the AfD and the moderately right-wing Mario Voigt of the CDU, Björn Höcke said: “It is wrong that Brexit has damaged the UK.” He went on to say that “Germany is in recession” and “the British economy is…
“Euro membership is an economic detriment to Finland”, claims EU election candidate and member of Finnish parliament Kaisa Garedew from the Perussuomalaiset party (Finnish national conservatives). Although the matter can be viewed from multiple viewpoints, the claim, published by the party’s newspaper Suomen Uutiset on March 26, 2024, turns out to be mostly false. Euro…
In an interview with the German news agency “RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland” (RND), Stefan Gelbhaar, transport policy spokesman for the German political party “The Greens”, said: “After novice drivers, older people are the most likely to cause accidents per kilometre driven”. According to our research, this statement is mostly false. In the RND article “Driving in old…
On their official Instagram page, The Left group claimed: “58 million tonnes of waste annually go to waste in the EU.” Is this number correct, and what is it based on? How was this number calculated? After checking the facts, the claim turns out to be mostly true, as extra context and nuance is needed…
News platform Brussels Signal published an article in April, titled ”Two thirds of Poles oppose adoption of the euro, poll shows”. Brussels Signal’s founder and publisher is Patrick Egan, who has connections to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. We began to question the claim because the platform’s political connections. However, we found in…
The claim “EU’s new environmental law bans bonfires in private property areas”, was stated on April 10 in an article by MV-lehti, a Finnish right-wing, fake news website, known from spreading misinformation. The claim turns out to be false. Celebratory bonfires are a prolonged tradition in Nordic countries, often lit during midsummer, Easter or Mayday…
YouTube favored far-right-wing videos in the run-up to the Finnish presidential election in 2024, claimed journalist Clothilde Goujard in Politico magazine on the 26th of March 2024. Goujard bases her claim on a well-known Finnish factchecker’s report. We checked the claim and found it uncheckable. According to experts, the data collecting period was not long…
On the 24th of April, euronews.green published an article regarding the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), that passed in the European Parliament on that same day. In the article, Matti Rantanen, director general of the European Paper Packaging Association (EPPA) is quoted calling the law “robust and evidence-based.” This claim comes as a surprise…
In a video, EU lead candidate of the right-wing populist party AfD, Maximilian Krah, criticized the EU digital laws that recently came into force. The Digital Service Act, for example, “is intended to prevent unorthodox and creative ideas from being shared on the internet”, said Krah. However, a look at the facts shows that this…
It is the year 2070, and I have to explain to young people what ‘a tree’ is. I have to tell them that the Amazon desert used to be full of them, but they have been burnt down. That our land is one of the reasons why we can no longer breathe. Tell me: how…
It still seems like serendipity for refugees to receive an authorisation in their destination countries. We’ve listed several stats to explain the asylum process difficulties and taken a look at the different initial situations of Croatia, Germany, Greece, France and Italy, as well as the role of Turkey. For further details our factcheck: “Mostly true:…
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…
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
