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.
The World Cup in Qatar is advertised as the first fully carbon neutral tournament. Skepticism about this claim is widespread. Can a major sporting event in a country that is strongly reliant on fossil fuels really produce zero carbon emissions? We checked this claim and found out that it is mostly false: FIFA has highly…
On November 05th, 2022, Irish left-wing party Independents 4 change (I4C) MP Mick Wallace, tweeted that the “Reality is EU now spends 3 times more than Russia” on defence. After analysing the figures Mr. Wallace refers to in his claim, it becomes clear that the claim is mostly true. Numbers from 2021During a word exchange…
Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s former minister of internal affairs and founder of the political party Movement of Socialists, partly blames the European Union for the escalating situation in Kosovo, which is connected to Kosovo’s decision to change the license plate policy. This claim turns out to be false. Serbian newspaper Novosti quotes Vulin’s claim, made on…
On September 7, 2022, Joachim Kuhs, Member of the European Parliament for Germany, declared on Twitter: “Herd immunity (in Germany) has already been reached: The infection control law is not necessary”. This claim turns out to be mostly false. Kuhs is part of Germany’s far-right opposition party AfD, which works against the government’s infection control…
On April 26th 2022, the British Democrats said that they want to withdraw from the UN 1951 Refugee Convention. This would make sure no more refugees would enter the UK. At least, that’s what they assert. Due to ‘the obligation of non-refoulment’, article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the need for…
On April 07th 2022, German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politician Alice Weidel claimed on Twitter that the vaccine mandate in Germany only failed because of the dissenting votes of her party. She refers to the voting of the deputies in the Bundestag earlier that day. According to Weidel, only 40 votes more…
On April 27, 2022, Brussels Times published the article “Major Belgian cities in precarious water situation” where it claimed that most of Wallonia and some of Flanders are depleting their renewable water resources at the highest rate in northern Europe. However, it seems that the author misinterpreted data from Aqueduct making the claim mostly false.…
In a recent talk about women in leading positions Ekin Deligöz, the German undersecretary of the Ministry for Families, Elderly, Women and Youth stated that mixed teams work more resiliently, faster, and more sustainable in times of crisis. This statement proved to be mostly true. “Diversity is not only a self-purpose: mixed teams work more…
Belgian Member of Parliament Hans Verreyt [of the nationalistic Vlaams Belang party] was quoted saying, “The inactivity rate among non-EU foreigners is 44.2 percent and among women it is even 59.3 percent,” in his party’s official article. These figures are correct. However, Verreyt carries on: “Anyone who continues to argue that migration is necessary to…
This fact check examines the origin and authenticity of the statement “Russia abandons International Space Station: It could fall on Europe!“, made on April 3rd in an article published by the Spanish daily sport newspaper Marca. The article says that Russia has ended its cooperation with Western countries regarding the International Space Station and allows…
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
