This spring season students from the EJTA journalism schools will once again check statements about topics in the upcoming EU elections. In their home universities and in cooperation with students from other EJTA schools they will produce fact checks, analyses and blogs. We expect to publish the first posts in early April. Follow us here or on X and on our 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.
On the 12th of August 2022 the Dutch far right party leader Thierry Baudet of opposition party Forum Voor Democratie responded to an article of Danish news website DR. The article was about three Danes who received compensation because of the rare side effect the three suffered from after being vaccinated with the AstraZeneca. Baudet…
In July 2021, housing prices in Europe had increased by 30.9% since 2010, according to data by Eurostat. A situation that has left many Europeans unable to buy their own property. In Belgium, Tine Heyse, a politician for the left-wing party Groen, stated that ‘if the current housing conditions in Ghent don’t change, 40% of…
On March 26th 2022, Stephan Brandner, Deputy Federal Spokesperson of the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), posted a press release on Instagram in which he claims that Germany will never fulfill its energy demand with only wind energy and solar power. Different studies have proven that this statement is false. In the past the…
The German TV-Show „Hischhausens Sprechstunde“ explains in a short film during the show (beginning at 28:30 minutes) how and why someone is developing a depression. One reason, among others, being a low education. Causes and concomitant effects are difficult to separate, which is why the general scientific consensus is that social status, and thus education,…
The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly noticeable. In this context, the e-vehicle is gaining more and more popularity in Germany – many people expect it to have a better climate footprint than conventional combustion engines. This thinking is promoted by statements like this: “E-vehicles are three times more efficient than combustion engines”. This…
In the Dutch House of Representatives debate on climate and energy on the 10th of June 2021, engineer and Belang van Nederland party leader Wybren van Haga claimed that wind farms, solar farms and biomass plants are not sustainable over their entire life cycle. In his plea, Van Haga refers to the citizens who live…
Numerous billboards around Poland appeared around February 2022, reading: “The European Union’s climate tax is as much as 60% of the energy production costs. EU climate politics = expensive energy/high prices.” The billboards turned out to be part of a campaign ran by Polish state-owned utility companies, financed by the Polish Ministry of State Assets.…
Russian state media Russia Today claimed in an article on its German website that “the danger is real” and that since 2015 it has been legally possible for third countries to use nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil. Research shows that part of the claim is true: it is possible by law for third countries to use…
On November 9, 2021, Flemish newspaper “De Morgen” published an article titled “Belgium loses more terrain on climate index: 49th place between Belarus and Slovenia.” Does Belgium really perform that bad in the Climate Change Performance Index compared to other European countries? Yes, it does. What is the CCPI? The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI)…
On April 4, 2022, Novinite.com published an article (with no author mentioned) claiming that Bulgaria ranks second in Europe, after Romania, in terms of cash transactions, according to the Global Findex database. It is also stated that 28% of the Bulgarian population does not have a bank account and the number of ATMs is 94…
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…
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.
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
