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.
In an interview with the German news agency “RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland” (RND), Stefan Gelbhaar, transport policy spokesman for the German political party “The Greens”, said: “After novice drivers, older people are the most likely to cause accidents per kilometre driven”. According to our research, this statement is mostly false. In the RND article “Driving in old…
On their official Instagram page, The Left group claimed: “58 million tonnes of waste annually go to waste in the EU.” Is this number correct, and what is it based on? How was this number calculated? After checking the facts, the claim turns out to be mostly true, as extra context and nuance is needed…
News platform Brussels Signal published an article in April, titled ”Two thirds of Poles oppose adoption of the euro, poll shows”. Brussels Signal’s founder and publisher is Patrick Egan, who has connections to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. We began to question the claim because the platform’s political connections. However, we found in…
The claim “EU’s new environmental law bans bonfires in private property areas”, was stated on April 10 in an article by MV-lehti, a Finnish right-wing, fake news website, known from spreading misinformation. The claim turns out to be false. Celebratory bonfires are a prolonged tradition in Nordic countries, often lit during midsummer, Easter or Mayday…
YouTube favored far-right-wing videos in the run-up to the Finnish presidential election in 2024, claimed journalist Clothilde Goujard in Politico magazine on the 26th of March 2024. Goujard bases her claim on a well-known Finnish factchecker’s report. We checked the claim and found it uncheckable. According to experts, the data collecting period was not long…
On the 24th of April, euronews.green published an article regarding the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), that passed in the European Parliament on that same day. In the article, Matti Rantanen, director general of the European Paper Packaging Association (EPPA) is quoted calling the law “robust and evidence-based.” This claim comes as a surprise…
In a video, EU lead candidate of the right-wing populist party AfD, Maximilian Krah, criticized the EU digital laws that recently came into force. The Digital Service Act, for example, “is intended to prevent unorthodox and creative ideas from being shared on the internet”, said Krah. However, a look at the facts shows that this…
Amira Mohamed Ali, a German politician of the new left-conservative party ‘Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht’, claimed “The Ukrainian leadership says that it wants to continue fighting, but the many thousands of deserters who are trying to leave Ukraine say something different.” This statement turned out to be uncheckable. Amira Mohamed Ali has been a member of…
Dutch ECR Group vice president Robert Roos claims: “Energy and food are becoming more expensive and companies are leaving. It is time to stop the green deal.” This statement turned out to be mostly false. On 12 March 2024, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR Group) tweeted a quote from their vice president Robert…
On May 11th, German politician Sahra Wagenknecht from the BSW – Reason and Justice party said in an interview: “Every second immigrant who comes to Germany has no right to protection at all, but can usually still stay and receive social benefits.” The claim turns out to be false. Wagenknecht uses a type of framing…
Isn‘t it great news? Wind energy overtook coal power as the largest energy source in Germany. In our fact check, we confirmed this fact as mostly true. However, wind power is also controversial. What are the downsides? The online news portal of the public broadcasters of Germany,Tagesschau.de subliminally glorifies the rapid rise of wind energy…
“We must expel all illegal immigrants and close our external borders,” expresses Nicolas Bay, vice-president of the European Identity and Democracy Group, during the plenary session of 19 January. Relying on the statistics mentioned in the Frontex press release about irregular migrants, Bay creates the image of an unmanageable flow of people entering Europe without…
Having uncomplicated access to sexual rights is still very difficult these days. We explored the difficulty of accessing SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) in times of the Corona pandemic. The topic of SRHR deals with issues such as sexual health, sexual rights, reproductive health and reproductive rights. These basic human rights include issues…
The right-winged political group in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy (ID), posted the following on their Twitter feed: “Ursula von der Leyen is forcing EU-members to go carbon-neutral whilst taking a private jet for half of her worldwide missions.” The investigation of this claim accusing the European Commission President on January 8th led to…
A first fact-check is certainly not easy, but it has guided these three journalism students to new insights. They have investigated a claim that states that the EU is hiring companies that supply weapons to conflict zones in the Middle East for border control. Which is definitely not some light reading. Thabo: “Watch out for…
Based on our fact check Mostly true : “Catholic Church loses members – Europe-wide”, we examined membership figures from five countries in Europe. Among them, some Catholic strongholds are already named in the original source. Our experience? The ways of the Church are unfathomable. The headlines surrounding the scandals of the Catholic Church are piling…
“It was Easter. On the day of Commemoration of the dead, I went to the cemetery like everyone else. However, unlike others I was holding a lit candle in one hand and sharing posts on my cell phone with the other.” The dissemination of false news is no longer a foreign topic. We all know…
Brexit became a reality at the end of 31st December 2020. Depending on the media, perspectives about this event have been different. In this media analysis, we have thoroughly examined nine articles from three leading newspapers in three countries: La Vanguardia (Spain), Le Monde (France) and The Guardian (United Kingdom). These three newspapers were chosen…
In our last FactCheck, we concluded that deputy Yevgeny Stupin was completely wrong in his claim that an average pension size in Latvia is 1000 euros. We have also come across the newest report made by the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation which states that in July 2020 an average pension size…
The pandemic makes the home a (more) dangerous place for many women. We took a closer look at whether the restrictions on social contact and curfews affected the extent of recorded attacks in the form of domestic violence. Violence against women is not an isolated phenomenon. The WHO identifies it as one of the greatest…
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
