Readers prefer traditional news outlets to campaigns’ sites

Election 2000 was pushed as the campaign when the often rocky marriage of politics and the Net would finally straighten itself out. It did just that, according to a new poll of online usage this campaign season — but there was little news to cheer campaign consultants.Americans logged on in record numbers for election news, but they stuck to traditional news sites and largely eschewed candidates’ own Web presences. ALMOST ONE in five Americans logged on this year to get election news, up sharply from the meager 4 percent in 1996; one-third of online users used the Net as a tool to follow the campaign and a full 10 percent of them did so every day, according to the latest survey released Sunday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Yet among those who did, the clear destinations of choice were major media sites. Almost half of them preferred to use Web sites of major news organizations, while another 27 percent chose commercial Web services such as America Online or Yahoo. Another 12 percent used local news services. One in five online users visited MSNBC.com, and an equal number also turned to CNN.com; portal news services such as AOL, Yahoo and MSN also scored big, as did major newspaper Web sites and local news sites. Most of those site’s users appeared satisfied: Almost every site had over 90 percent of readers who found it to be “very” or “somewhat” useful. The campaigns, which invested serious resources and money into their online homes, were largely bypassed. Only 7 percent used candidates’ Web sites as a primary source of information, and another 7 percent used sites that specialized in politics; despite the slight reliance on candidates’ sites, almost seven in 10 sought out details about candidates’ positions on issues.