The worst idea I’ve heard this week: forcing Internet sites to balance their commentary
August 15th, 2008
Rasmussen Reports just released some interesting results from a recent telephone survey in the United States. Nearly half of Americans “believe the government should require all radio and television stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary, but they draw the line at imposing that same requirement on the Internet.” By “drawing the line”, they mean that 57% do not believe the government should force balance of commentary on individual Internet sites - but 31% still do. That’s still uncomfortably high for me.
You need to be a premium member to get access to the demographic cross-tabs, but I would assume that age is the primary dividing line here: I can’t imagine too many Net Geners who grew up “bathed in bits” would support the balance initiative, but I could just as easily understand how people who don’t use the Internet (or don’t use it too often), which is a much older demographic, could be drawn into supporting it.
Such people would come from a broadcast media mindset, where certain individuals could consolidate control of dominant media assets, and thus control the political messaging that the vast majority of people are exposed to (think: the one newspaper town). The internet, of course, is an entirely different animal - one where it’s a lot harder (an understatement to say the least) to get a stranglehold on the political messages being sent out. More to the point, could you imagine how much less interesting so many websites (and particularly blogs, assuming they would be included) would be if they were forced to balance their opinions… when the whole point of the site/blog is to offer their unique opinion on a given subject?
So yes - the very notion of balance on individual sites is the worst idea I’ve heard this week, even though I still think there’s a business opportunity for someone to create a site that’s far better than what we have to day in making that balance easily accessible to those that are interested. But to take a positive spin on the survey findings, 71% of people said it’s already possible for “just about any political view to be heard in the media.” It’s easy to forget how little time has passed since the majority of people would not have agreed with that…
I am continually amazed by the number of people that approve of government regulation on information and opinion. People that believe information distributed via radio and television should be regulated, but the same should not apply to the Internet, never cease to amaze me. Is it simply disdain for the companies that run these networks?
The Fairness Doctrine is nothing short of censorship and an attack on the free market. If the views presented by a radio or television program are not popular, the trusted metrics for those mediums will indicate it. It’s not the government’s place, whether it’s television, terrestrial radio, satellite, internet radio or blogs.
This is all about the “fairness doctrine” for radio. Meaning this is all about getting Rush Limbaugh off talk radio. If it passes, a radio station would have to carry a three-hour liberal talk show to balance carrying Limbaugh’s show. Since liberal talk shows fail to garner advertising dollars, no radio station would carry them. Hence they would be prohibited from carrying Limbaugh or any one of half a dozen other conservative talk shows.
The second problem with this it that it is a telephone poll. Some people - like me - never do telephone polls. They are grossly inaccurate.
Oh yes, if the fairness doctrine ever becomes law, it will eventually extend to blogs.