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.
In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, that was published on 7 October 2020 on the website of the Düsseldorfer media outlet, Daniel Terzenbach, board member of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), claimed, that after about five years, approximately half of refugees are employed. The claim turns out to be mostly true.…
Elon Musk criticises Bitcoin for its enormous energy consumption of fossil fuels. Without further ado, he drops it as a payment option at Tesla, whereupon the Bitcoin price falls rapidly. Musk is mostly right about the greenhouse gas emissions involved in Bitcoin mining, but he is mostly wrong about the trend. Creating and destroying values…
On March 22nd 2021, the news site Nieuws365 published an official statement of the right-wing populist political party Vlaams Belang. According to their chairman of the department of Brussels and senator Bob de Brabandere, 398 prisoners who were classified as radicalised were released in the past five years, which he claims is problematic.This statement turns…
On May 8th 2021 Melissa Fleming, who works at the UN as Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, tweeted about a great inequality between the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations. She claimed that high income countries have received more than 80% of the vaccinations in comparison to low income countries who obtained only 0.3%. The claim turns out…
On Wednesday 14 April, an article (pay wall, Dutch) appeared on the website of Flemish newspaper De Morgen on a WWF report (Dutch) on tropical deforestation. It states that Belgium is one of the largest deforesters in Europe, per capita. The claim turns out to be mostly true. Belgium is indeed one of the European…
The refugee policies within EU states are struggling with transparency and consistency. According to a Deutsche Welle article, Catherine Woolard (director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles) said that asylum decision-making in Europe even resembles a lottery game, meaning that people often end up being rejected even though they need protection. By researching…
On 16 March 2021, BBC Online reported on negative health effects linked to noise pollution. The article claims that living near an airport or motorway has been shown to have a negative impact on our health. This is also confirmed by scientists who point to the effects of noise on humans. This claim is true.…
“The corona crisis has reduced migration flows worldwide. That has implications for prosperity. In rich countries, economic growth without immigration risks being undermined.” This claim from the German statistical bureau Destatis, published in Belgian newspaper De Standaard from 10 February 2021, turns out to be mostly true. Immigration is a global phenomenon with Europe as…
At the Climate Summit organised by the United States in April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated that the United Kingdom is “halfway to net-zero”. It is correct that the UK is halfway on their net-zero policy. However, the claim is only mostly true, as research shows the scenario is not as optimistic as the…
In April, a prominent Croatian news outlet called Jutarnji list published an article stating that members of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), including nine Croats, receive a daily allowance of 290 euros per day for online meetings, and these per diems are intended to reimburse travel expenses. The statement that Jutarnji list reports…
We studied 3 news portals, providing information about COVID-19 to check how factual they are and evaluate how news is told.
“We have only one enemy and it is the virus. Only research can overcome it with more and more cures and a vaccine”, the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella said on the 26th of October inaugurating “The Days of Research”, an initiative promoted by Airc (Italian Association for Cancer Research). While Europe is…
Since the beginning of the corona virus crisis many theories on how to stop, slow down or cure the virus have emerged. Last month there were more than 60,000 cases in France and some studies on some patients has made a lot of noise especially in the press. The debate was opened in France following…
On 18 May 2020, the influential British music and events magazine Mixmag published an online article on its website explaining that Lawrence Gibbons, president of the NCA’s Drugs Department, had named the United Kingdom and London – the country’s capital – as the biggest consumer of cocaine in all of Europe. Mixmag regularly reports on…
People have long stopped using landlines, but mine still rings sometimes. We all know who it is—my grandmother. She’s active and curious. Like Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Polly, she enthusiastically collects notes from health magazines and newspapers, and keeps them well organized and guarded. Mostly, it’s on topics like “ how to protect ourselves from not…
Journalism students Sam Blom and Engeline Keizer recently came across a quote of Molly Scott-Cato. She was a member of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom before they withdrew themselves from the European Union. On the day she had to give up her seat in the Parliament, she stated: “We must keep the dream alive,…
Just as journalists have to fact check before they publish, politicians – and anyone else who makes a statement – have to check their theories and sources to claim something. It’s of fundamental importance that people check their claims, assuming a misinterpretation of your entire statement can destroy it and it will not benefit your…
No less than 59 billion euros were awarded to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2019. That is approximately 36% of the total EU budget. European policy provides for enough food to be harvested in a sustainable way. In addition, consumers should be able to buy agricultural products at a reasonable price and farmers should…
Recently, the Russian media has repeatedly reported that the European Commission intends to allocate funds for the implementation of projects in Russia and other countries. The projects are aimed at developing civil society and democratic transformation, promoting freedom of expression and media literacy, improving understanding of EU policy.
On 15 June the borders of the Member States of the European Union and those belonging to the Schengen area and the United Kingdom will reopen. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio called it the “D-Day of European Tourism”.
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
