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.
Friedrich Merz, federal chairman and chancellor candidate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said in an ARD television interview that most of the recipients of citizen’s benefit are able to work. This statement is mostly false. “We have got 5.5 – 5.6 million citizen’s benefit recipients in Germany, around 4 millions of whom are able…
“It is still possible for us to reduce emissions in this decade to such an extent that we can meet the 1.5 degree target.” That is how Olaf Scholz began his speech at the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference. He also mentioned the technologies that are available to help us achieve it. A look at the facts…
In April 2023, Hubertus Heil, Germany’s Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs, stated: “By 2035, there will be no job that is unrelated to AI.” According to him, AI will influence all fields of work in the future — whether by automating routine tasks or assisting with complex processes. Upon review, it becomes evident…
On July 2nd, 2016, roughly three weeks before the Brexit referendum, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, appeared on a TV debate broadcast by the English channel Sky News. During his appearance, he urged his fellow citizens to vote against the United Kingdom (UK) leaving the European Union (EU). He claimed that „it would…
It has now been two years since the World Cup in Qatar. Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, claimed that the 2022 World Cup had changed positively for the workers. He says that the workers have much better conditions after the World Cup and that the World itself was the catalyst. This claim was checked, and it…
Europe is facing various challenges: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the re-election of Donald Trump are causing uncertainty. Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador to the United States, warns in an interview with Sandra Maischberger: “We have a security problem in Europe. We have a noticeable, significant gap in defense spending over the next few years.”…
The former “Ambassador of Beer” Johannes Vogel (Free Democratic Party) was interviewed in the Tagesspiegel newspaper. He spoke about his role as “Ambassador of Beer” and the topic of alcohol. He said that the amount of alcohol is crucial and that people manage to consume a safe dose. This turns out to be largely false. Johannes…
On November 7, 2024, Alice Weidel, co-chair of the party AfD, stated in a ZDF television interview that Germany has the highest energy costs worldwide, which she claimed was making its economy noncompetitive. This claim turns out to be mostly false. The interview took place after the German government coalition breakdown. Weidel used this claim to advocate…
“Of the men who arrived in Germany in 2015/16, 86 percent are now working. That’s more than the average number of men who were born in Germany, which is only 81 percent.” This statement was said by Lea Reisner, candidate of the party “Die Linke”, on May 22 2024 in the MDR talk show Fakt ist! However,…
On July 12, 2024, the now former FDP Secretary General Bijan Djir-Sarai urged an extension of the border controls that were carried out in Germany during the European Championships in an interview with SPIEGEL. He justified this to SPIEGEL by saying that permanent controls were “a necessity” in order to “limit irregular migration to Germany”.…
For our factcheck we did research about the Climate Change Performance Index, an index which show how well countries perform when it comes to climate change. More specifically we took a look at how Belgium performs. To say I was shocked about Belgium’s results might be a bit exaggerated, but still there was a part…
Normally Finland hasn’t been in the headlines of global media, since Finland is mostly known for being the happiest country in the world (according to The World Happiness Report) and having one of the best education systems in the world. Now Finland and our president has been put in the spotlight. During the Ukraine war,…
Finland’s defence capability became the focus of international media attention after Russia invaded Ukraine. Finland holds a very special geopolitical position in Europe because it has 1300 kilometres border with Russia. In particular, Finland’s position regarding the defense union NATO has become a question of interest. Finland’s military service system is universal, which means that…
As several studies show, corona-lockdowns have led to increased psychological distress to all ages. International suicide hotlines, where pastoral workers take the time to listen, might help. This video is linked to the fact-check article Drastic increase in suicide attempts by children. Leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions in the box below. Take note: your…
Social media is having a huge impact on the mental health of Gen Z. Find out if it’s more likely to cause problems or solve them here!
When we started looking for claims that we could fact check, we came across a double interview with two Belgian politicians. One was party chairman Conner Rousseau (Vooruit), a left-wing politician and the other was party chairman Raoul Hedebouw (PvdA), an extreme left-wing politician. While reading the interview, we noticed the harsh words the two…
Introduction and context In a recent factcheck article, our colleagues from the Media University Stuttgart checked the claim of Mr. Nikola Milina, the head of Croatian police, who said that the violent pushbacks at the Croatian-Bosnian border published in October 2021 were an “individual event” and that he didn’t want such incident to “affect the…
To be honest, this last fact-checking has not been the most difficult that we have done. The claim that we chose seemed easy from the very first moment as it was not about any complex topic. Actually, both of us had doubts about whether if it was a good claim with enough base to dig…
September 12, 2021, author Carl Zimmer published in The New York Times the article “A New Company With a Wild Mission: Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth“. A group of scientists led by biologist George Church plans to revive the genome of the Woolly Mammoth and do it within six years. Dr. Church argues that their…
For our factcheck we chose the statement of a local demographer and University of Zagreb professor Nenad Pokos. In an interview for N1 television, he said that Croatia spent 24 million euros on the census in 2021, or 24 times more than Slovenia spent in 2011. He also stressed that Croatia has 2 million more…
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
