On 26 February 2020, the public broadcaster NDR released the first episode of Das Coronavirus-Update, a podcast with the virologist Christian Drosten. The episodes were about 30 minutes long at first, and later longer. In June 2020 the podcast won the Grimme Online Award twice, once from the jury and once from the public. The jury wrote that it showed “dass auch ausführlicher Wissenschaftsjournalismus das Publikum fesseln kann.” Even detailed science journalism can hold an audience. When the regular episodes ended in March 2022, NDR counted about 135 million plays.
The testing foundation
Stiftung Warentest. A foundation established by the federal government in 1964 that tests consumer products and publishes comparative results with numerical grades. It takes no advertising. A poor grade is commercially serious, and a good one appears on packaging for years.