47% Favor Government Mandated Political Balance on Radio, TV

Source: Rasmussen Reports

Thursday, August 14, 2008
Nearly half of Americans (47%) 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. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say leave radio and TV alone, too.

At the same time, 71% say it is already possible for just about any political view to be heard in today’s media, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty percent (20%) do not agree.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) say the government should not require websites and blog sites that offer political commentary to present opposing viewpoints. But 31% believe the Internet sites should be forced to balance their commentary (full demographic crosstabs available for Premium Members.)



Read more: http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/47_favor_government_mandated_political_balance_on_radio_tv

Who determines what constitutes "liberal" or "conservative"? I can't think of an objective way to do that.

Most peoples' views would be described by most other people as a blend of both; more importantly that is by no means the only way of bifurcating political speech.

For too long people have been led to believe all political view points are in the Liberal or Conservative camp exclusively. That is just plain false.

:shrug:

Air America being forced to air Hannity or O'Reilly? Would you be OK with that?

Rp

What a stupid show.

but that they would also present the Democratic view ---

opposing views don't have to be labelled anything ---

It's simply . . . "the other side of the story" --

Which is often not the case.

They're often educated and well-read themselves.

Conservative opinion and propaganda DOES need to be balanced with FACTS.

He had been monitoring an English-language broadcast from Japan that was saying that the Japanese Navy was making significant headway in some battle theater, and that the US was on the run.

He asked the officer "Isn't that just a bunch of propaganda?"

The officer replied "Just because it's propaganda doesn't necessarily mean it isn't true."

As to your assertion that liberalism equates to truth in all cases, I'd say that qualifies as propaganda. Whether it's true or not often depends on a person's point of view.

they're not very pleasant people, truth be told --- !!!

There are, however, many Green/liberal Libertarians ---

Either way, it's a concept which doesn't hold much water ---

is considered a "liberal statement", but is a FACT agreed upon by every climate scientist with peer reviewed papers which have appeared in National or international scientific journals. "climate change is part of a natural cycle. Human activity does not contribute to climate change" is a CONSERVATIVE statement which has no bona fide scientific backing. Same with evolution vs. Creationism. "George Bush took more vacation days while in office than any other U.S. President in history" is considered a LIBERAL statement, along with ANY other criticism of Bush. "George Bush was appointed by God" is a CONSERVATIVE statement.

Truth has a liberal slant. It's not a "point of view", it's facts vs. fiction and fantasy.

It is not correct to say that climate change has nothing to do with natural cycles. It probably is not correct to say that human activity has nothing to do with it.

..."use of fossil fuels contributes to climate change"... ...is considered a "liberal statement"...

Use of passive voice is a hallmark of propaganda. You haven't stated who considers it a liberal statement. I don't, and I suspect you don't either. Scientific opinion is supposed to be politically neutral. It's supposed to be only lay people who introduce politics into science. But let's continue...

...but is a FACT agreed upon by every climate scientist with peer reviewed papers which have appeared in National or international scientific journals....

That is actually not true. It is agreed upon my MOST climate scientists with peer reviewed papers blah blah blah. A large majority of them, but not literally all of them. Making absolute, unqualified statements is another hallmark of propaganda. Having literally all supposedly qualified scientists in complete agreement on something less obvious than the existence of gravity would be a red flag for me.

..."George Bush took more vacation days while in office than any other U.S. President in history" is considered a LIBERAL statement...

Passive voice again; I consider it to be an empirically testable statement of alleged fact. It's either true or not true, and anyone who actually cared could probably prove it beyond any reasonable doubt.

"George Bush was appointed by God" is a CONSERVATIVE statement.

Appeal to isness, also an ipse dixit. Lorien, honestly I am not aware of anyone ever having made that statement before. I consider it a fact that he was appointed by the Supreme Court, but there are well-meaning people who would disagree. If you just made it up, you are most certainly creating propaganda here. Another common trait of propaganda: Making a statement that sort of sounds like some unspecified person or persons of some particular persuasion may have said it, whether or not they actually did.

I think you have an intuitive understanding of propaganda, but lack insight into when you are indulging in it yourself.

Then we can move on to balance.

71% say it is already possible for just about any political view to be heard in today’s media

In the U.S. we get right and far right. 71% for that stat is almost laughable.

I wish it could be made illegal to lie, but that is just not possible.

non-profits independent groups with various web sites and monitoring of lies though. I think we could possibly do more to promote this sort of thing. Doesn't need to be supported by government but government could aid this by being more open. Better exposure to the average Joe of what exactly bills in Congress mean to them. What are there taxes actually funding? What taxes are being used by the gov for administration, what for defense, what for charity (given to other countries, or coporations, etc.).

AAR failed because it couldn't make a profit. It's all a big show by for-profit media.

Except in the Blogosphere.

but they do exist ---

National news programs are scared to death to put one opinion on the air without someone having a diametricaly opposed opinion. Balance isn't the problem.

But when one of those opinions (these days, more often the politically right side) is patently ridiculous and demonstrably false, the media just paints it as one equally valid opinion (if not the Gospel Truth)instead of using, I don't know, JOURNALISM, to investigate and call "Bulls*#&!" when they see it.

What makes the media SEEM unbalanced of late is not that they only present one side; it's that they don't DO THEIR JOB and reveal when the crew currently in charge run roughshod over the Constitution.

Black vs. white; right vs. wrong; 1 vs. 0.

It's a lazy way of generating interest in order to boost audience interest, which leads to higher ratings and increased advertising revenues.

that's dysfunctional for Democracy- and results in poor public policy, no matter how you spin it.

Or attempts to give a radical fringe opposition to a well-accepted viewpoint equal footing.

Example: Global warming. There are actually a few scientists who say the climate is not warming. They are a tiny minority, but an organization like Fox News will pit that viewpoint against the mainstream view in a manner that gives the impression that there is actually an active debate about it in the scientific community.

It's a way of generating the appearance of conflict, which gets peoples' attention and makes them want to watch or listen.

reduced this way and made simple. They want to be either with A or B. And once with A they are against B and vice versa. A number of other countries work just fine with multiple political parties and little (or no) promotion of enmity between groups.

The media (news and entertainment) promotes this every chance they get. It's a cultural problem.

We have hordes of right wing radio hosts who call every view point different than theirs "LIBERALS", which isn't true at all. Many conservatives disagree with the direction the Repub's have gone, etc.

The good news is that the use of the term "LIBERAL" as a catch-all bogeyman is bound to wear out eventually. I haven't heard anyone being slammed as a "Beatnik" since I was a small child, and the term has come, I believe, to be a generally positive one. A lot of people think of the Beatniks as including brilliant poets, essayists, musicians, etc.

Conservatives would naturally oppose any wide dissemination of the truth, as they have in the past.

There should be more accountability on the public airwaves rather than forced "balance," imo

monitor the content? the government? politically appointees?

Brown is married to one of the worst profiteers of the Iraq occupation.

That said, many of the people who answered that more balance is needed are probably Limbeciles who think there isn't any conservative opinion on the airwaves.

We already have every global warming story including the negative viewpoint of a tiny minority, every evolution story mentioning creationism, every 10 second mention of 10,000 anti-war protesters having 5 seconds taken up by the 10 pro-war demonstrators...

is NOT the fairness doctrine. Equal time is the concept that a broadcast outlet has to offer the same amount of ad time, at the same ad rates to all candidates for public office (if any such time was made available) regardless of political party/affiliation.

The Fairness Doctrine, if reinstated, will almost assuredly and immediately be challenged in Federal court and, almost certainly, be decided by the USSC as political speech should be protected by the strongest possible means as being able to limit THAT stifles opposition to the majority in power.

Additionally, the media landscape has changed rather dramatically since the original implementation of the Fairness Doctrine, the days of NBC, ABC and CBS as the only sources broadcast information are long since gone, even more so than when the Fairness Doctrine was wiped from the books.

for the government to mandate "balance". When the government decides who gets to speak, or what opinions need to be expressed to constitute balance, we have already lost. The government can't require that anyone listen, either, so while there may be a "right to speak" your case, there's no obligation for anyone to listen. If the government regulations amount to "general guidelines" then stations will find a way around them to put what they want to on the air. If it results in government micromanaging the situation, then it will just result in less political discussion overall.

Every single point you have made has been proven wrong in the past- both by objective research and in court cases, though that obviously meant nothing to Reagan's FCC.

Hence, Americans are subject to both appalling amounts and degrees of dishonesty, private censorship and vile personal attacks- for which there's neither any accountability or incentive to change.

And since most have never traveled abroad, they don't recognize that in every other western nation the sorts abuse that's hurled at them each and every day either doesn't exist or is relegated to the fringe.

Sadly, after two generations of conditioning, all too many Americans don't know any better.

While it may have made for more balance, it also caused a lot less discussion. For 50 years, you had a relatively (compared to now) small amount of political programming, which in large part (radio in particular) was discussing local issues. Larger, national broadcasters (and there are a lot more of them now, due to the deregulation) tended to avoid political discussions other than the occasional sunday morning programming. If these larger corporations are forced to provide balance for political programming and this results in a significant drop in listeners, they'll switch to a format more profitable. Either that or they'll broadcast via internet, satellite radio and podcast (which I doubt will be subject to these regulations) and still get the same vile message out to those who want to hear it. A few shows will survive and maybe do well, but many will eventually be canceled because they are simply not profitable. As far as what Americans are "subjected" to, they're not forced to listen to anything. This is clearly evident by the large number of people who have no idea what's going on, as they choose not to listen to any of it.

although that was a repeated talking point set out by the corporate media's lobbyists at the time.

One thing we agree on though is that there was more discussion of local issues (compared with the paucity of content we see-or don't see- today).

Again, that's part and parcel to abandoning the public interest standard- and allowing licenses to be renewed without much if any consideration of licencee's obligations to their communities.

isn't able to get their "message" out, it's not going to make much of a difference. There are now other means of broadcasting their crap that will not be covered by such legislation. As far the amount of programming goes, while people will tune in to listen to Limpballs, Insanity, Bill O'Douchebag, and even frickin' A-hole Savage's crap for 10 hours a day, they won't tune in to listen to 10 hours of debating the issues, nor will they listen to a progressive talker follow up one of these asshats. They'll simply turn off the radio or switch to another station. If the ratings aren't there, the money isn't there, and they'll switch to something more profitable.

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Why don't we just break up the monopolies instead?

Whats the Over/Under on the percentage of Freepers represented in the 47%.

Sometimes an opposing viewpoint doesn't deserve equal air time.

Hold the media accountable to telling the truth and going after everyone like a pitbull.

"Saddam has weapons of mass destruction"

"George Bush wins Florida"

"Here are the identities of the 19 hijackers"

"McCain leads Obama by 6 points"

"Valerie Plame's true identity was common knowledge"

etc. etc. etc.

conservative and liberal are not the only ones.