Who checks the fact checkers? Brussels looking into the case

A fact-checking group claiming to be independent received significant EU funds under unclear selection criteria. As it turned out, however, the media outlet is far from being independent, and even happened to have stated falsehoods. V4NA sent a written inquiry to the European Commission, the body in charge of awarding funds, to find out who is checking the fact checkers and what they consider 'independent'.

POLITICS NOVEMBER 25. 2022 19:04

As we reported in part one of our article series, the European Commission awarded a few million euros under dubious circumstances for the establishment of various fact-checking teams. Each such team may have received hundreds of thousands of euros, but it is unclear and uncertain precisely what selection criteria was applied. One of these collaborations is led by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, which had entered into a strategic cooperation with Magyar Jeti Zrt, the publisher of the Hungarian opposition 444.hu news portal. The result is a “fact-checking” micro-blog named Lakmusz.

One glance at the „fact checkers” at Lakmusz is enough to see that they are journalists of the leftist-liberal press without exception, and the members of its advisory board are closely connected to the network of US oligarch George Soros.

As it came to light, the „fact checkers” who are funded from European taxpayers’ money happened to have stated falsehoods.

Magyar Nemzet drew V4NA’s attention to an article published by Lakmusz that included false allegations about our news agency. The article claimed that we presented a video as „evidence” to prove that there was a risk that weapons destined for Ukraine are ending up on the black market.

However, this is not the case. The article drew special attention to the fact that there is no proof of when and where the video of the weapons circulating on the internet was taken. V4NA also noted that the article was partly based on a Serbian television news report, adding that we have reservations about the video.

This raises the question that if the supposedly independent fact-checkers have made false allegations once, will they do so again? Or have they already done so, perhaps in several instances?

We sent our questions to the European Commission, from where Lakmusz received significant support through the French AFP news agency. We asked:

who checks the „fact checkers” who are funded from European taxpayers’ money?

We also inquired about the consequences for fact-checkers who have been found to be misrepresenting facts, as this has already happened in at least one case.

We were also interested in finding out how an editorial office is selected to be granted millions in EU funds which comes from European taxpayers in 27 member states. We asked what criteria had to be met for an editorial office to receive these funds. We would also like to know how many facts the chosen editorial team needs to check in a given unit of time in order to receive the funds? Another question can be why the Brussels funders have hidden these groups behind the AFP. Perhaps this was an easier way to disburse money without transparency?

The European Commission has indicated to the V4NA that they are looking into the matter. As soon as we receive concrete answers, we will publish them.

In the next part of our series, we will go into detail about who exactly is behind the „independent” Lakmusz, and from where, and for what purpose, they get funding apart from the European Commission.

POLITICS

Tags:

european commission, george soros, Hungary, lakmusz