Medienlinker (medienlinker.de) is committed to making its digital news service accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of ability or technology. We aim to meet or exceed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA standards, and we continuously review our website to improve the experience for all readers.
What is our commitment to accessibility?
We strive to ensure that everyone can read, navigate, and understand our Swedish news coverage without barriers. This means designing our pages to work with assistive technologies, maintaining clear structure, and fixing issues as soon as they are reported. Our goal is to provide trustworthy journalism that is equally available to every user.
To achieve this, we follow the principles of perceivable, operable, understandable and robust content as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). We also conduct periodic audits and incorporate user feedback into our development cycle.
Who is responsible for accessibility?
Our editorial team, led by editor-in-chief Sebastian Lorenz, oversees accessibility standards across the newsroom. The technical implementation and testing are coordinated with our development partners. For specific concerns, readers can reach the dedicated accessibility team at accessibility@medienlinker.de.
Daily decisions about layout, colour contrast and interactive elements are reviewed by our fact‑checking and editorial operations desks. If you encounter a problem, please tell us – we treat every report seriously and aim to respond within two business days.
What accessibility features can you expect?
We build the site to be navigable by keyboard alone, with visible focus indicators on all interactive elements. Text and background colour combinations are chosen to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA contrast ratios. We also support reduced‑motion preferences and avoid content that flashes more than three times per second.
Additional features include semantic headings (h1–h6), descriptive link text, alt text for meaningful images, and consistent navigation. We test with screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver. Known limitations, such as older PDF documents or third‑party embed content, are documented and we work to improve them over time.
What you can expect from us
We treat accessibility as an ongoing commitment, not a one‑off project. Our team monitors new WCAG updates, reviews user feedback, and plans incremental improvements. When we release major design changes, we conduct an accessibility review before going live. We also provide plain‑language summaries of our editorial policy on request.
We understand that no website is perfect. That is why we publish a statement that outlines our current level of conformance and what we are doing to get better. Every year we re‑evaluate our progress and update this page accordingly.
How do we handle known limitations?
We are aware that some older articles may contain images without adequate alt text, and that certain embedded videos lack captions. These are being addressed retroactively. We also recognise that our complex data visualisations can be difficult to navigate with assistive technology – we are exploring alternative text descriptions and downloadable tables.
If you find a part of the site that is not accessible, please let us know at accessibility@medienlinker.de. We will acknowledge your report, investigate, and either fix the issue or add it to our improvement backlog. You may also use our complaints procedure for formal escalation.
Questions or concerns?
For accessibility‑related enquiries, contact us directly at accessibility@medienlinker.de. You can also reach the general newsroom via our contact page or by mail at the registered office in Gibraltar. If you prefer to submit a formal complaint about an accessibility issue, please refer to our complaints procedure. For questions about our journalistic standards, see the editorial policy. We value your input and are committed to making Medienlinker a welcoming space for every reader.