Pull Quote: ‘Validity and reliability to ascertain scientific integrity of GMMU cannot be determined merely by visiting GECOM’s office to observe its functioning, as the GMMU coordinator in 2001 seemed to think’
RESPONSIBLE reporting requires accuracy, balance, fundamental fairness, and a compliance with the principles and ethics of journalism.
Attempting to uphold this spirit of journalism, the first Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Media Monitoring Project was established in January 2001, strategically timed prior to the 2001 election to vitiate the lunacy that passed for journalism in Guyana. Unfortunately, some broadcasting stations and broadcasters in 2001 ran afoul of fulfilling their civic and legal responsibilities.  Broadcasters enter into an almost sacred pact with the public, given that broadcasters obtain an exclusive use of public property – the electromagnetic spectrum.  In return, broadcasters agree to serve the public interest.
Today’s Perspectives will re-echo some of my concerns expressed in my responses to several GECOM Media Monitoring Unit (GMMU) reports in 2001; and hopefully, these concerns could serve to improve the methodology of the current Media Monitoring Unit (MMU).
The GMMU reports prior to the 2001 election, while an important first step to correct deficiencies in the broadcasting and print media world, engaged, perhaps unwittingly, in methodological adventurism. 
The mandate of the GMMU was to inform citizens in a pre-election environment about the behaviour of the media, and the media themselves about their own behaviour.
This being the case, then, GECOM had a serious responsibility to present valid and reliable information.  Validity and reliability to ascertain scientific integrity of GMMU cannot be determined merely by visiting GECOM’s office to observe its functioning, as the GMMU coordinator in 2001 seemed to think. 
The GMMU reports presented for public dissemination, in their own right, also must have details substantiating their own scientific integrity. Visiting GECOM’s office should not be the sole prerequisite for determining scientific integrity.
My concern in reviewing the GMMU reports prior to the 2001 election was to assess their worth, based on the validity of the projects as reported. Nevertheless, GECOM, in establishing GMMU in 2001, did not synthesize the relevant literature on modelling media monitoring, particularly as related to the Caribbean and Guyana. This synthesis was, and is, necessary to provide a theoretical and evidence-based foundation for media monitoring.
At the end of the monitoring period in 2001, I intimated that future GMMU reports must contain an appropriate methodology section, and not merely a laundry list of definitions styled as ‘methodology’, as shown in previous reports.  Providing mere definitions by themselves does not constitute ‘methodology’. 
The consequence was that many methodological questions remained unanswered after the media monitoring unit completed its work in 2001. For instance, in relation to the previous GMMU reports, I am not convinced that the coding used in the content analysis included the logic of conceptualization and operationalization.  Also, if a monitor examined all news stories within a particular period, then the monitor would need to provide a sample of them, so that there could be a public assessment on the appropriateness of the coding utilized. 
GMMU needed to present all news items reviewed, perhaps, appendicized, so that the public could have ascertained whether they assigned news items objectively and accurately to the three categories used: Political Parties, GECOM, and Government. The GMMU reports in 2001 did not provide this information, essential for assessing and evaluating the media monitoring project.
In addition, there was need to have a general working agreement on the use of these terms – Political Parties, GECOM, and Government. GMMU also needed to indicate how it measured these specific concepts. In addition, the Methods section, also, did not indicate the standards used to classify news items into ‘positive’, ‘neutral’, and ‘negative’.
The reports acknowledged relying on methods used by media professionals in many monitoring projects worldwide. The GMMU 2001 reports might have very well done that, but the methods were vaguely presented.

At any rate, it was simplistic and inappropriate to conclude that because GMMU’s method was previously applied in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, it necessarily followed that such a method could be fully utilized in Guyana; that was cultural and imperialist arrogance on the part of the ‘foreign’ gentleman who had coordinated GMMU’s media monitoring efforts. 

We constantly have to refine and modify foreign-transplanted research methods to ensure that the finally-acceptable media monitoring design is appropriate for the new society. The GMMU 2001 Reports did not demonstrate that this procedure was followed. Needless to say, that this protocol must be applied in the future. 

It appeared at that time that the GMMU Project in the 2001 election was based on a reactive approach, whereby the monitoring process was driven daily by political party platforms and events, and not including the concerns of voters, too.  The information, therefore, generated in this process, did not enable the voter to make an informed choice.

The use of the term ‘Government’ with regard to election-related matters in the news coverage, constituted another problem. Outside of its legislative mandate, the Government has no business in dabbling with election matters.  The Government does not contest an election, a political party does. 

GMMU used ‘Government’ as a category in the media monitoring process in Guyana. In fact, reputable media monitoring bodies do not use ‘Government’ as a category in other democracies.

Monitoring of the media during an election campaign in Guyana, with a history of rigged elections, is a politically sensitive activity.  In order to apportion credibility and integrity to this type of media project, it is absolutely necessary, therefore, inter alia, to summarize the parameters of the training programme used, and to publicize the staff profiles of the monitoring unit. The GMMU of 2001 failed to provide this information; the 2011 MMU should not go down the same road.

The 2001 GMMU Project’s integrity was questionable, as the validity and reliability of its findings were not ensconced within the public documents/reports issued. The current MMU has to immediately embark on substantive corrective action, based on concerns emanating from the GMMU’s 2001 activities. The public will be watching!