IMPRESS and MRS Offer Journalists Polling Guidance

With the UK general election just five weeks away, independent press regulator IMPRESS has teamed up with the Market Research Society (MRS) to launch a consultation on guidance for journalists reporting on opinion polls.

The draft guidance - 'Using surveys and polling data in your journalism' - can be downloaded both from the MRS web site and the IMPRESS web site, with both organisations inviting responses to the consultation and feedback on the document until 20th November. MRS CEO Jane Frost encourages all journalists to use this draft guidance to support their reporting in the coming weeks, to help them understand research issued by polling companies and ensure that they are reflecting the findings accurately in their reporting.

Chairman of the UK Parliament's Select Committee on Political Polling and Digital Media, Baron Lipsey, will chair a roundtable of industry insiders to discuss the challenges of reporting on elections and accurately writing about surveys and polls. Participants will include Ipsos MORI CEO, Ben Page; NatCen Senior Research Fellow, Sir John Curtice; Cordelia Hay, Associate Partner at Britain Thinks; Simon Perry, Director of On the Wight; and Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster.

Ed Procter, COO at IMPRESS, adds: 'High-quality public interest journalism is a cornerstone of a healthy functioning democracy, particularly around election time when the public needs accountable and accurate information to navigate political messaging and misinformation. We know journalists want to report responsibly, so our hope is that this guidance will be a useful resource to them and helps to improve reporting on complex issues such as research and polling'.

Web sites: www.impress.press and www.mrs.org.uk .