Furious with the news media, he pressed his staff for both a better means of controlling the national agenda and getting his words before the public without journalistic filtration.2 Eisenhower, who held communicating with the people as a basic principle of leadership, was an ardent supporter of press freedom, but also believed reporters had no claim to a monopoly on political information. At first glance it would seem politicians have been given an unequaled opportunity to communicate directly with constituents via e-mail and Web sites. In fact all Canadian federal political parties have Web sites, as do many Members of Parliament. All government departments now offer information online as does Parliament, which provides extensive information on legislation, committees, and transcripts of the proceedings of the House of Commons and Senate. The vast quantity of information at these official sites allows anyone with a personal computer and modem to closely monitor legislative activity.
Similar resources are also available online in the United States.
However, precisely because of the overwhelming volume of this very information available online, the rate of return for most rational individuals seeking information from these online sources is relatively low. Much of the information online is technical, procedural and bureaucratic. Anecdotally, the Internet may even be emerging as a forum for political party loyalists to smear opponents of their candidate and gain backdoor entry into the mainstream press. For example, in the recent race for the leadership of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance Party, the pro-life special interest group Campaign Life Coalition published reports that members of one leadership contender's campaign team were homosexual. The traditional media likely would not have published this material on their own initiative, but did so inadvertently in reporting on the controversial Web site.