Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) Report for the Period: March 1, 2015 – March 31, 2015
Brief: On Tuesday, February 17 and Wednesday, February 18, 2015, at a well-represented forum arranged by GECOM and held at Georgetown Club, executives at the levels of owners, managers, and editors from the print, broadcast, and on-line media, and other important stakeholders involved in media regulation and training activities across the country, met to discuss the formulation of a self-regulatory Media Code of Conduct to guide reporting of political, social, governance and electoral issues, in the run-up to and after the May, 11, 2015 General and Regional Elections. The 2015 Elections Media Code of Conduct (MCC) was the consensus result of the aforementioned deliberations. In essence, this Code is a modified version of the one used during the country’s last elections in November, 2011. However, the current version is more expansive with the inclusion of additional categories of infringements not seen in the previous Code. The current Code also recognizes and takes into consideration the rapid technological advances that are daily re-shaping the country’s media landscape, and, as such, on-line media content, for the first time, is now included within the remit of the document. Another salient input into the current Code, is a Glossary of Terms that provides unambiguous definitions of some of the terms used in the Code, thereby lessening the possibilities for varying understandings and interpretations, as happened before. Significantly, the 2015 MCC was signed-off by twenty-three (23) media-related organizations in the country, inclusive of media houses in Berbice, Demerara (Georgetown), Essequibo, and regulatory and training institutions such as the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA), and the Centre for Communications Studies, University of Guyana. Moreover, participants at the forum fully endorsed GECOM’s Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) as the sole entity to superintend the implementation of the Code. Indeed, the MMU’s track record in successfully monitoring local media performance since Guyana’s 2001 elections, says a whole lot about the years of experience the Unit brings to bear in the specialized area of media monitoring. So, even as we again unflinchingly take up the mantle given to us by the country’s media fraternity to implement the 2015 MCC, albeit in an unbiased, objective, and professional manner, we also see in it the opportunity to contribute in a definite way towards enhancing the nation’s democratic processes, of which elections is arguably the major plank.
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