Understanding US Election Issues & Presidential Candidates

People living outside America find it difficult to get a clear picture of the issues and candidates in the US presidential election 2008 as a majority of the US media and the blogs seem to have become rather emotive (and partisan?), and the verbiage in the news reports and commentary is not of much help to non-Americans.

Perhaps this is understandable owing to the unenviable situation the USA finds itself today…but isn’t the media supposed to uphold the basic tenets of journalism by providing fair, objective and understandable news/commentary, whoever the audience?

I also wonder whether this emotive/sensational/partisan approach to presidential election is leading to an increasingly garbled reporting and commentary, which may, in turn, also creates a degree of confusion among the American voters. It is a known fact that in the US elections the voter participation varies between moderate and low (not a good commentary on the state of democracy in one of the world’s leading democracies).

Maybe I don’t have the correct information. But I, and many others worldwide, would be delighted to know which magazine/newspaper/blog/site/journalist offers the most objective/fair election information with a degree of clarity and simplicity. It will be a good exercise to conduct a poll to this effect. We in the media love to quote from polls on different personalities/issues but seldom turn the searchlight inwards.

In this context, I found extremly useful information on issues and candidates relating to the US election 2008 at the BBC website (please click here…).

Another useful site for non-Americans to understand the American presidential election is this one…

Any more suggestions please…??? After all this election promises to be unlike any other US presidential election in the recent memory!