BIRODI Points Out Flaw in REM's Methodology

Cameramen(Beta/Armenija Zajmi Besevic)

The Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI) NGO warned on Jan. 21 that according to the methodology for monitoring the media campaign for the upcoming elections, which the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) has presented, all media outlets would be rated as neutral in reporting.

BIRODI said that the methodology pertained only to the tone of reporting by journalists, whereas the parts of features in which public officials and politicians speak positively or neutrally about themselves and others would remain outside of REM's scope of monitoring.

In its press release BIRODI says that the tone of a journalist's reporting is most often neutral because their role largely boils down to, as the organization put it, "holding a microphone."

"The journalist cannot be the only unit of monitoring the tone, rather it has to be all the actors in the feature for which the time of representation is measured," adds the statement.