b) Journalists using social media platforms in their personal as well as
professional capacity should try to
separate the two as their audience
might not be able to differentiate.
In conclusion, journalists should not be
seduced by the informality of social media and compromise their integrity and
professionalism.



a reflection of how all voters have
actually voted and what the outcome of the election will be. The
reporting should reveal a sample of
the exit poll, the organisation that
conducted and financed it, its methodologies and the margin of error.
Results of exit polls should not be
announced orbbroadcast until after
the last polling stations have closed.

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a) Opinion Polls
Opinion polls are an important element in election coverage because
they are one way of
d e t e r m i ning public attitudes toward(s) issues,
candidates and parties. In this regard
they can
enrich coverage and
enable voters to get a fuller picture
of an election.
In reporting, opinion polls media
need to reveal which party, individual or organisation commissioned
and paid for the poll, the purposes
of the poll, the identity of the polling organisation and its expertise
in
polling, the nature of the
questions or issues the poll focused
on, the geographic coverage and
demographic profile of those who
were polled, the methodologies
used in polling including details of
the
sample and the margin of error which will contextualise the poll
results.
b) Exit polls
Reporting of exit polls should be
clearly identified as such and not as

Media covering elections are obliged
to inform the electorate of the election
results in a comprehensive way, as they
become available, whether provisional or
final, as released by the Electoral Management Body. Journalists should take
special care when predicting final results
based on partial results available.
When reporting on parallel vote tabulation, journalist should be aware that
parallel vote tabulation is an estimation
of final results of an election based on
the collection and aggregation of election results obtained at polling station
level. This collection can be complete (all
polling stations) or based on a random
sample (selected polling stations). While
parallel vote tabulation have a solid level
of statistical validity, journalists must
exercise caution, care and responsibility
in reporting parallel vote tabulation to
avoid confusing or mixing up official tallies and parallel tabulation. In reporting
parallel vote tabulation media need to
reveal which individual or organisation
commissioned and paid for the parallel
vote tabulation, the purposes of the par-

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