The most significant development in this election cycle is the emergence of a substantial for-profit political portal sector. The for-profit political portals generally share a set of common features. Most provide similar political information, including current news headlines and stories, elected official and candidate listings by zip code, issue summaries, candidate profiles, election results and extensive links to other political sites. Several of the portals also attempt to facilitate political action by supporting community building and contacting elected officials and media organizations. While it is clear that traditional media outlets are not as transparent as they could be, we have an opportunity with the Internet to raise the bar of public expectations about political information.
Opacity is particularly insidious on political portals.
Citizens are unlikely to be surprised by the absence of a link to an opponent on a candidate site. For-profit political portals, however, can be expected to act as rational political and economic actors. The contrasting motivations among the public interest, advocacy and for-profit organizations producing these sites will have an impact on the level of transparency and the breadth of information provided. This is where the issue of redlining arises. If a site does not provide some facet of information, and does not divulge its editorial policy for excluding it, visitors are deprived not only of the content of that information, but even of the realization that such points of view exist.