This autumn-winter season our students from EJTA EUfactcheck-schools will publish their new fact checks, blogs and media analyses in a sixth season of fighting misinformation in Europe. With in-depth research these future journalists unravel claims in a world between truth and confusion. With more cross-national collaboration we hope to keep you, our critical audience, alert on important European topics. Follow us on social media and be the first to read our fact checks!
In the case of the collapse of Alexei Navalny, Russian officials claim that “pancreatitis, not poison, caused Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to fall ill.” While the EU assumes poisoning, Russian officials are convinced that pancreatitis was the cause. Since no access to medical records is available, the claim is uncheckable”. First of all, a brief…
On 20 October 2020 Slovenian TV presenter Marko Potrč claimed in his Facebook post that the tests performed to detect the presence of the virus (PCR) do not tell if someone is actually infected or even contagious. He said that dr. Lejko Zupanc, infectious disease specialist, also had to admit this on national television. This…
Amnesty International Slovenia tweeted via their account on 23 October 2020, claiming that “Abortion restriction does not prevent abortion, it just makes them less safe”. This was found to be true. Amnesty International Slovenia organization posted on their Twitter account an image with text stating that abortion restriction does not prevent abortion, it just makes…
At the end of 2020, Slovenian parliament passed 780 million euro bill of investments. Member of the Slovenian Parliament Alenka Jeraj stated that Slovenian soldiers do not have the equipment they deserve; they have to wear shoes and helmets in bad condition. The statement was used to justify the large amount of money provided by…
On 1 Octobre 2020, the Dutch edition of Vice magazine claimed that fans of horror movies show better psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. It based its claim on a study conducted by the university of Chicago, Pennsylvania State university and Aarhus university. The claim turns out to be mostly true. The study was conducted…
On 4 November 2020, Zdravko Počivalšek, Slovenian Minister of Economic Development and Technology, tweeted: “The assessments of the international financial institutions show that the measures taken so far have made it possible to maintain social stability and jobs.” We rate this claim as mostly true. In a tweet from the official account of the Slovenian…
In this fact check we looked at one of many highly controversial Tweets about climate change posted by US president Donald J. Trump. In November of 2012 he stated that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”. We have found this claim to…
In October, several newspapers published articles with headlines like “Pope Francis backs same-sex civil unions“. The claim is based on previously undisclosed footage from an interview with Pope Francis in the new documentary “Francesco” which we have watched for our fact check. After extensive research we assess the claim as mostly false. “Francesco” is a…
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation, represented by Sergey Lavrov, the Head of the Ministry, imposed sanctions against Germany and France on the case of Alexey Navalny. This information was reported by the Russian News Agency (TASS) on November 12, 2020. On November 12, 2020, Sergey Lavrov, head of the Ministry of Foreign…
“Generation 0-100: Russian Universities Fail to Offer World Class Education” – our team found an article with this headline on the website of “The National Interest” magazine dated October 29, 2020. Indeed, Russian universities did not manage to get into the top 100 best universities in the world. However, higher educational institutions raised their positions…
The free movement of people is one of the four fundamental rights of the EU. Due to the newly introduced border restrictions across the continent caused by the pandemic of Covid-19, this right cannot be fulfilled as before. Terminologically, the media coverage of the situation has been framed with the use of words with negative…
The most controversial Eurogroups of recent years took place on the last 9th of April: a video conference meeting that brought together all the economic ministers of the EU countries, in which the debate was about which measures should be activated in dealing with Coronavirus pandemic’s emergency. The conference ended relatively soon, there was no…
The Richard Lugar Public Health Research Center opened in Georgia in 2011, with funds from the U.S. Government within the framework of the Cooperative Biological Engagement Program. The purpose of the center is to promote public health through detecting and tackling outbreaks of disease. Though the construction of the center was funded by the U.S.,…
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread very quickly in Italy. From February 21st, when the first case was diagnosed in Codogno (Lodi, Lombardy), more than 143.000 people have suffered from the virus and more than 18.000 have died throughout the country. Scientists calculated the infectiousness rate through the so called R0 factor- which indicates the number…
An outbreak of COVID-2019 pneumonia caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus was recorded in Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. On March 11, the World Health Organization(WHO) declared a coronavirus pandemic in the world. According to Worldometerdata, on April 1, more than 889,213 people were infected worldwide, 188,352 patients were cured, and 44,322 people…
Analysing Vox’s position on gender violence has required us to frame the rise of right-wing movements in Europe, select claims from their leaders in media outlets and use relevant sources –reports by the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary and experts– to debunk their discourses.
During the elections or when important topical issues show up, a lot of factchecks will pop up. Factchecking is a concept that is particularly prevalent in politics. Partly due to Trump and his fake news, factchecking and politics go hand in hand. The checks are often not popular with all politicians, because they make sure that…
Five years ago the European Union adopted a Directive on reducing the consumption of light plastic bags, according to which it is necessary to cut down their consumption from 200 to 90 pieces per person per year by 2019, and down to 40 pieces by 2025. The most rational option is to stop the production…
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…
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.
