2008 Online

MSNBC's website includes a 2008 Campaign section under politics. By moving the cursor over the option the user is provided with a list of all the democrat and republican nominees. Clicking any of the names brings you to a profile page with a list of archived stories and MSNBC interviews with the candidate.

FOX News takes a different approach, including all the candidates on one page with relevant stories beneath each name. This list, however, is at the bottom of the page. The top is issues oriented, focusing on specific topics with interesting views from a single candidate.

Of the three major news channels, CNN had the best 2008 campaign page. At the top of the page were two boxes, one for democrats and one for republicans, with pictures of each candidate and full profiles when clicked. Unlike MSNBC's profiles, CNN's has information about the candidates, not just archived news stories. CNN has taken the opportunity to process the information and use it's website to deliver it correctly.

Searching in Google the first thing I found was Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 site. It's slightly off-mainstream, but has one of the best campaign sites I've found. Not only does it include all the candidates equally, the use of video and user input draws people in and entertains while informing.

Most other sites I found through Google were less than useful. Most were just a jumble of news stories and uninformed opinions. Some better ones were Real Clear Politics and The Huffington Post, which is a well known online publication but nonetheless fails to give true news coverage for the campaign, preferring to stick with opinion commentary.