The Medien-Doktor project

What makes scientific information good and reliable—and how to recognize it.

Dubious miracle or genuine medical breakthrough? The environment-friendly solution to all our energy problems or yet another prominent case of greenwashing? A workplace revolution or a motor for mass unemployment? Progress in medical research, the climate crisis and AI disruption affect all of us to varying degrees. Specialized journalism is the window through which we see and evaluate what happens in all of these areas. Initially started as a monitoring project for medical journalism, the “Medien-Doktor” has developed into a multi-disciplinary media platform for quality monitoring of specialized journalism covering medical and nutritional research, environmental and AI topics. 

The “Medien-Doktor” became fully operational in November 2010. Our coordinating editors regularly select examples of scientifically informed reporting and refer them to our pool of experienced science and medical journalists for evaluation. Their evaluations are based on scientifically tested quality criteria that are refined in the context of the project. On this basis, every journalistic piece is graded and an in-depth analysis of its strengths and weaknesses is presented on www.medien-doktor.de. Research tips and tools for journalists complete the portfolio online and reflect our constructive approach to science journalism quality. 

In 2013, the “Medien-Doktor” also started monitoring the quality of journalism on environmental issues and possible solutions by applying a slightly adjusted set of quality criteria in the review process. In 2020 a third Medien-Doktor project went online, focusing on nutrition journalism. Since then, a reworked modular set of criteria is used with specialized elements to assess the quality of journalism covering medical and nutritional as well as environmental topics. The “Medien-Doktor” project keeps evolving and adapting to recent developments in the media – with a new sub-page focusing on AI reporting launched in 2024, for instance. Additionally, we have started developing our Medien-Doktor assistance research project, evaluating articles about health with a semi-automated application with LLMs and statistical methods. We have already developed a prototype that is being tested in national and regional newsrooms in Germany. Currently we are working on finetuning and expanding our tool.

Nominated for Grimme Online Award

Among more than 2,100 online outlets, the “Medien-Doktor” (together with 25 other platforms) was nominated for the 2011 Grimme Online Award – the most prestigious media award in Germany.

“The Commission sees the nomination of the still young medien-doktor.de project, that (…) fills a publishing gap, as explicit encouragement to continue along the same path.”

The Grimme jury: “What distinguishes the “Medien-Doktor” concept from other forms of media journalism and criticism is its standardised review criteria and its pool of reviewers including many experienced journalists.”

The idea 

The idea for developing the “Medien-Doktor” in Germany was sparked by the enormous quality differences in reporting on medical topics: excellently researched pieces on the one side, stories completely devoid of quality consciousness on the other. The project seeks to foster transparency with regard to quality standards in medicine and health journalism, environmental journalism and AI coverage and put them up for discussion. Institutionally situating the project at the University of Dortmund guarantees the greatest possible degree of independence in reviewing stories. The results are systematically evaluated in the Department of Science Journalism and reflected back to the journalism community.

The criteria

The catalogue of criteria used by www.medien-doktor.de to review print, radio, TV and internet reporting has already been employed by similar projects such as HealthNewsReview.org (USA) and Media Doctor (Australia, Canada, Hong Kong). The modular criteria set installed in 2020 is divided into general criteria of good science coverage, topic-specific criteria and general criteria of good journalism. While the general scientific criteria for example emphasize a transparent use of scientific sources and contexts, general journalistic quality criteria also take into account formal aspects such as clear sentence structures and factuality. The topic-specific criteria differ the most: In environmental journalism, constructiveness might be a sign of quality, while in medical journalism stories must under no circumstances make false promises. AI criteria on the other hand have to fit the diversity of contexts in which AI applications are publicly discussed. 

You can find an overview of the criteria here.

The aims

One aspect is very important to the founders of www.medien-doktor.de: the goal is never to denounce journalists, a pastime which has become popular on many blogs.Rather, we want to draw greater attention to positive examples and use every review to recall what good science journalism is all about. The “Medien-Doktor” wants to help people classify and understand scientific research results and their social, political and economic implications. In times of profound structural change in the media system, the project seeks to support journalists and to also offer them tools for composing pieces of good science journalism. In some editorial offices, constructive criticism from well-informed, respected colleagues could even provide an argument in the campaign for improving working conditions – this, at least, is something the “Medien-Doktor” team hopes for.

The project

The project is located at the Department of Science Journalism at TU Dortmund University and funded by different partners, please see below. The insights gained from Dortmund’s monitoring of medical reporting are not only channeled into research on the quality of journalism but also into journalism training and continuing education projects. The “Medien-Doktor” is always looking for additional partner organizations interested in promoting sustainable quality assurance in medical reporting both morally and financially.