In October 2021 students from EJTA EUfactcheck-schools will again publish their fact checks and blogs on this website. With in-depth research they unravel claims in a world between truth and confusion. With more cross-national collaboration we hope to keep you, our critical audience, alert on pan-European topics.
In a headline on Friday 19 June 2020 Belgian public broadcaster VRT NWS wrote that COVID-19 may cause more severe symptoms to people with blood type A. According to the article, people with this blood group therefore run a higher risk of serious symptoms when infected with the coronavirus. This conclusion came from an international…
The leader of the Slovenian National Party (SNS), Zmago Jelinčič Plemeniti, stated that there are 400 employees at the Ministry of Culture and that almost 30 years ago there were only around 40. The number of employees claimed during the special session of the Slovenian Parliament Jelinčič’s, is almost two times bigger than the actual…
In an interview with Stern.de, German economist Claudia Kemfert claims that international studies show that, for example, a male author benefits more from a scientific paper than a female author. This claim can be classified as “True”. The interview with Ms. Kemfert was published as part of a campaign by the German medium Stern under…
Did Pfizer wait on purpose? After the US elections, a prominent Croatian RTL TV news anchor Zoran Šprajc, made a comment in one of the most watched news shows in Croatia called RTL Direkt, assuming that the bio-pharmaceutical company Pfizer waited on purpose for the end of the elections to publish news about the vaccine…
Greenpeace Slovenia tweeted via their account on 27 October 2020, claiming that “It’s official now – the solar energy is the cheapest source of energy in history!”. This is mostly true. Slovenian Greenpeace organization posted on their Twitter account stating that solar energy is from now on officially the cheapest source of energy in history.…
The Belgian news service “De Morgen” claimed that there’s at least 30 times more plastic on the bottom of the ocean than on the surface. The news service is referring to a study that took place at the Australian coast. Research if the claim can be applied to our European sea waters however, found proof…
The German News Show “Tagesschau“ claimed that after Brexit Referendum Brits move to an EU country. Although our research proved the fact true, we decided to classify the claim as mostly true because there are several Brits who left the UK before Brexit or had other reasons to leave the country. Due to the upcoming…
Flemish weekly Knack published an article on 22 October which explained that Belgium remains the biggest entrance gate for cocaine, in the whole of the European Union. More interesting was the fact that this statement was made about seizures of heroin: “The increase in seizures of heroin in the EU is mainly due to an…
In an interview published on the 15th of November by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the EP President, David Sassoli claimed: “The European Union has got 6 different vaccines, each of which will ensure 200 million doses”. According to official European Commission press releases, the EC reached 5 agreements with the pharmaceutical companies related to…
Prominent internationally recognized Croatian scientist Miroslav Radman claims that in Croatia there are 967 fewer deaths ”at this time“ compared to last year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. While Mr Radman does not specify in his claim to what period he specifically is referring to, stats from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics – which he quotes…
While analyzing political statements in Croatian media, we discovered that the data we came across tend to be correct but incomplete. Incomplete in a sense that they’re not represented within context. Politicians like to focus on the positive side of their work, unfortunately that’s often at the expense of providing a full picture. Manipulating with…
The UK withdrawal from the European Union implies that after the expiration of the transitional period the EU laws will no longer be applicable to England. Trading with the countries outside the framework of the free trade agreement will be regulated by the World Trade Organization if these countries are its members. Although many agreements…
The European Union has been adding funds to the Mafia bosses’ accounts for seven years. From 2010 to 2017 10 million euros coming from EU funds have been allocated to 151 farms owned by Nebrodi’s family in Sicily. A massive fraud against the rural developments programmes (EAFRD) that has critically damaged the Italian rural economy.…
A few weeks ago, I came across a strange fake post on a Georgian Facebook page, it looked like this: It was published on November 13, 2019, by a large pro-government Facebook page, Corridor of Shame, which regularly tries to discredit the opposition. In this case, they chose a different target: Myth Detector, a large…
Starting from a rather negative state of mind when it comes to our climate, we chose an article of the Belgian newspaper De Morgen in which our minister of climate Zuhal Demir (N-VA) claims that, despite the general belief, the quality of our Flemish air is improving every year. (Factcheck from 19 December). Because persons…
On the 4th October 2019, the French coast guard intercepted two boats with illegal migrants in the English Channel. As claimed in a statement by the French maritime prefecture of the English Channel and the North Sea, the 31 people were brought ashore. The Coast Guard provided first aid to the refugees, after that they…
The first step in factchecking, finding a claim, can often be the hardest part of the process. But a good claim is often right around the corner. The internet can be an overwhelming source of information when trying to search for a claim. A lot of people make claims that could be checked but those…
EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM), a civilian monitoring mission, which operates in Georgia since 2008, became the target of organized disinformation and discrediting campaign from Kremlin actors. The new wave of the disinformation launched after the occupational regime of South Ossetia detained EU monitors on the ground of “violation of the state border” on October 24.…
According to the Spain’s Supreme Court decree of 14 October, 2019 12 Catalonian politicians were sentenced to imprisonment and fines for initiating the anticonstitutional referendum on independence of Catalonia from Spain, which was held on the 1st of October, 2017.
When you live in a democratic country, there’s no reason to deny that politicians have a very big influence on the people. It’s their job to make us feel safe, guarded, keep the economy flowing, provide enough jobs and make sure the country works the way it’s supposed to work. Still we don’t always see…
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.
