Reporting Guidelines
General Press Release No. 39 (October 1980)

Opinion Polls

The Australian Press Council has been concerned that there are no general guidelines for the press when publishing public opinion polls.

After gathering information from both the press and those firms engaged in polling, it has decided on a series of guidelines to assist the press, but at the same time the Council stresses that the bulk of newspapers are already using most of them. The Council appreciates also that tabloids might have difficulty, because of lack of space, in publishing the full list.

The chairman, Sir Frank Kitto, said the guidelines were in no way mandatory, but were issued to help both the press and the public get maximum information from any published poll.

The preamble to a published poll, Sir Frank said, should so far as possible conform to the following:

1. The identity of the sponsor (if any) of the survey.
2. The exact wording of the question(s) asked.
3. A definition of the population from which sample was drawn.
4. The sample size and method of sampling.
5. Which results were based on only part of the sample; e.g. men or women; adherents of particular political parties; and the base number from which percentages were derived.
6. How and where the interviews were carried out: in person, in homes, by telephone, by mail, in the street, or whatever.
7. Date when the interviews were carried out.
8. Who carried out the poll, e.g. trained interviewers, telephonists, reporters etc.
9. Name of organisation by which survey was carried out.

This GPR was modified by GPR 83 in November 1986

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