NOTE TO READERS: When this project lost substantial funding at the end of 2018, I lost the ability to continue publishing criteria-driven news story reviews and PR news release reviews - once the bread-and-butter of the site going back to 2006. The 3,200 archived reviews, while still educational, are getting old and difficult for me to technically maintain on the back end of the website. So I am announcing that I plan to remove these reviews from the site by April 1, 2021. The blog and the toolkit - two of the most popular features on the site - will remain. If you wish to peruse the reviews before they disappear, please do so by the end of March 2021. After that date you may still be able to access them via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine - https://archive.org/web/.
Comments (6)
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David Finer
June 3, 2012 at 5:42 amHi Gary
I am glad you addressed the possible flaws not only in the media reports but I guess, in any rating system. I know you are constantly developing your thoughts on criteria, and that the German Mediendoktor.de, e.g. uses additional criteria to the ones on other Media Doctor sites and, indeed, Health New Review. Under the auspices of a research foundation, we have recently launched an MD-like service in Sweden on news about Complementaryt and Alternative medicine in the media. However, I envisage probably adding and revising rating criteria over time based on feedback from health care workers, journalists, laymen and others. Based on the story you penned above, on the limitations of the rating system as I read it, are you currently thinking of ways to include assessments of i.a. “key context, caveats or framing”? I appreciate the need to limit the number of criteria for the tool to be usable at the same time… but there are indeed also other important aspects of medical writing, some qwhich the current criteria do not
David Finer
June 3, 2012 at 5:42 amHi Gary
I am glad you addressed the possible flaws not only in the media reports but I guess, in any rating system. I know you are constantly developing your thoughts on criteria, and that the German Mediendoktor.de, e.g. uses additional criteria to the ones on other Media Doctor sites and, indeed, Health New Review. Under the auspices of a research foundation, we have recently launched an MD-like service in Sweden on news about Complementaryt and Alternative medicine in the media. However, I envisage probably adding and revising rating criteria over time based on feedback from health care workers, journalists, laymen and others. Based on the story you penned above, on the limitations of the rating system as I read it, are you currently thinking of ways to include assessments of i.a. “key context, caveats or framing”? I appreciate the need to limit the number of criteria for the tool to be usable at the same time… but there are indeed also other important aspects of medical writing, some qwhich the current criteria do not
David Finer
June 3, 2012 at 5:44 amSorry, the last words should read:
…but there are indeed also other important aspects of medical writing, some of which are quality criteria, which the current rating criteria do not address.
Gary Schwitzer
June 4, 2012 at 8:28 amDavid,
Thanks for your note.
We don’t post separate criteria for context, caveats or framing. But we embed our assessments for these qualities within our commentary on each criterion.
It’s difficult to provide an overall grade for context; a story may provide ample contextual information on cost, for example, while providing no broader information on existing alternatives. Another story may address many criteria, but the framing strikes us as disease-mongering. We think that the more specific we can be, the more helpful is our critique.
That is why we remind all readers of our site to go beyond the “grade” or “star score” and read our comments.
David Finer
June 3, 2012 at 5:44 amSorry, the last words should read:
…but there are indeed also other important aspects of medical writing, some of which are quality criteria, which the current rating criteria do not address.
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