Today’s Financial Times misses the point about Web coverage of the US election. The FT points out the CNN effect, where when the crunch comes, the mass of people turn to a trusted source. That’s undoubtedly true when looking at large-scale numbers, but the story for me is how an extraordinary multiplicity of key information sources has sprung up far outside the normal media channels.

I pointed yesterday to Curmudgeon, where there is discussion of statistics (which is what Florida is all about) that can only be found in the most insipid way in the conventional media. (And that’s when the mass media gets it right: I’ve seen hardly any discussion of how the sample manual recount is statistically of little validity. Most media just did a straight line extrapolation. Curmudgeon explains why this doesn’t work.)

For more general information, there’s The Perpetual Election, while Open Secrets gives a detailed picture of the money behind the candidates. All of these sites will lead you in illuminating ways to other sites exploring different aspects of the election or politics in general.

The frustrating aspect of mainstream news sites, even those that do their jobs very well, is how they have been reluctant or incompetent at using the openness of the Web. I know they want to keep users inside their site for commercial reasons, but if I find a site that will lead me helpfully to other relevant sites, I return far more often than I do to the ones that pretend that they are the exclusive source for everything on the Internet.

Generosity of spirit can be a good business strategy in new media.