There should be a protocol for pollsters

Dear Editor,
The majority of the Guyanese public depends on the independent presses of Kaieteur News (KN) and Stabroek News (SN) for non-partisan journalism and integrity of published reports. So far these two presses have served Guyana admirably despite adversities and often under most trying circumstances.

Reasonably, Guyanese would like to ask the owners and editors of both KN and SN to agree on a protocol (let’s call it, Standard Requirements for Publishing Polls in Guyana’s Independent News-papers) for publishing polls concerning Guyana and its affairs. Since polls can influence the body politic, they should be carefully and properly executed. We need polls, if made public via KN or SN, to represent a true sample of the Guyanese people. In addition, we should know what poll questions were asked and how the conclusions were reached.

For polls to be published in KN and SN, the pollster should strictly meet the following conditions and guidelines. If these conditions are not met then the polls should not be published.

The conditions would be:
(1) The name, location and qualifications of the head pollster. A contact telephone number for the lead pollster must be made available so that he/she can be contacted.

(2) The polling organization’s website with details of itself as well as all the contributing participants.
(3) Poll questions and answers in tabulated form along with statistical results, % error in the poll and bias in the poll.
(4) The protocols are published on website. Details should include: how is the sample of the poll determined, the location of the people doing the poll, the location of the sample (people in the poll), and how they were contacted (by telephone, on the street in Guyana, etc).

(5) Who has commissioned the polls and/or is making financial contributions towards the polling organization and its staff?
If these basic requirements are agreed upon by the owners and editors of KN and SN then these Standard Require-ments for Publishing Polls in Guyana’s Independent News-paper would eliminate most of questions about integrity and political partisanship of the pollster and the polls.

Yours faithfully,
Anand Daljeet
Editor’s note
We do not speak for KN and can only answer for SN. However, the Media Code of Conduct for the last election covered the matter of polls, and all the newspapers signed it.

It included the following: “the need to discover the date, location, financial backing and methodology of such surveys, including the organization of the person commissioning the poll and the organization conducting the survey, the number of persons interviewed, the questions asked and the margin of error.” The AFC poll undertaken by Dick Morris did not meet these requirements, and as such only the outline of the results was published by this newspaper in the public interest.

Where Mr Bisram’s poll was concerned, we published a bit about the origin of Mr Bisram’s polling activities, and said that the poll had been carried under his supervision over a two-week period in July 2006; that persons had been interviewed at random throughout the country in face-to-face interviews in intercept contacts as well as at home; that 2,180 individuals had been interviewed, comprising 1003 Indians, 676 Africans, 305 Mixed, 4 Portuguese, 3 Chinese, 15 others and 174 Amerindians; that the interviewers comprised teachers, retired principals, accountants, UG students and graduates, and people who had previously worked for the elections commission and the Bureau of Statistics; that the margin of error was 4%; and that Stabroek News had commissioned the poll. Tables showing the breakdown of responses according to ethnic groups were also published.