Dear Editor,
It is not enough for Stabroek News to accept a letter from Mr Bisram that he formed a sample of 780 persons of which he created various percentages of Indians, Africans, Amerindians and Mixed Races, attributed a sampling error and did a poll. I can set up a front organization and do the same tomorrow. I have proven that Mr Bisram’s sample is manipulated and does not stand up to the 2002 Guyana census findings and the statistical and population trends exposed by the censuses from 1980, 1991 and 2002. Because the sample is suspect, news organizations like Stabroek News must take additional steps to safeguard themselves.
Given Mr Bisram’s notorious history of bias as exemplified in his letters, responsible news organizations must accordingly treat information from him as suspect until and unless he produces full particulars. His poll results should not be published until and unless he produces the actual questionnaires, discloses the persons who did the interviewing, discloses who paid for him to conduct the poll and provide evidence and explanation of how he arrived at his sample, which is a tainted sample if one studies the population trends. Stabroek News and Kaieteur News and any other news organization must have Mr Bisram sign a document enabling them to verify particulars of the poll before publication. These entities must be able to speak to the interviewers.
I don’t have a problem with any news agency publishing the results after verification but this wool over the eyes and fly-by-night secrecy madness Mr Bisram tends to engage in cannot be accommodated any longer. In fact, his questionable credibility as a pollster in not only Guyana but in Trinidad & Tobago as well, warrants that Mr Bisram and NACTA take steps to legitimately prove themselves as acceptable. Unless he registers an organization in Guyana, news media houses should treat him as a pariah. Showing up during summer vacations and running polls by secrecy cannot work any longer.
There are too many ignorant, mis-educated and easily misled people in this nation for potentially fraudulent information to be peddled that easily.
Do you think Gallup or any other polling organization in developed countries can ever pull what Mr Bisram has been pulling by selectively releasing information to match his insidious agenda? Could any of these organizations ever publicly write letters of such slanted bias as Mr Bisram and ever get their poll findings taken seriously or even published? How could a man conduct a poll with such selective bias asking questions to suit an agenda? Even worse, Mr Bisram selectively picks what results he wants to publish in a dangerous attempt to push or pull public opinion in a particular direction. There are laws governing these entities in developed countries. There are rules governing them. Developed countries know the dangers of misinformation and statistical manipulation. Mr Bisram and NACTA have operated as a law unto themselves for far too long. Until a news organization is getting to the heart of the matter and seeing the full particulars, Mr Bisram’s poll results should be consigned to the garbage can.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
