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…