Monitoring the quality of medical news reporting: Early experience with media doctor

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the reviews of medical news articles posted on media doctor, a medical news-story monitoring website. Design and setting: A descriptive summary of operating the media doctor website between 1 February and 1 September 2004. Main outcome measures: Consensus scores for 10 assessment criteria for the medical intervention described in the article (novelty, availability in Australia, alternative treatment options given, evidence of "disease mongering", objective supportive evidence given, quantification of benefits, coverage of harms, coverage of costs, independent sources of information, and excessive reliance on a press release); cumulative article rating scores for major m..