Election Day news coverage changes

We've implemented a few changes for our Election Day news coverage, many for the better.

In the past, we've spent a good deal of staff time sitting at courthouses waiting for results or more recently sitting at our computers waiting for online results to be available.

This year we will again be giving you real-time results as they come in but also providing you with links to check on the results yourself in a user-friendly way.

We've set up 33 links to local election results through the secretary of state's website. Simply go to our website and follow the links to the results for the Legislature, federal offices, schools, cities, counties and the hotly contested constitutional amendments.

We'll also be using instant news messaging through Twitter on our website to provide the latest results and hopefully get you the final results before you go to bed, depending on what time you go to bed, of course.

Most of us in The Free Press newsroom will be here to 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. and we have staff coming in at 5 a.m. Wednesday to catch you up on all the latest if need be.

Two or three of our reporters and a photographer will be providing live coverage from the campaigns, again through the Twitter feed on our website. It's at twitter.com/mankatonews.

The Secretary of State's Office tells us they will update their site every 15 minutes and experience tells us that sometimes it's even more frequent. We of course, will rely on county websites as backups to the Secretary of State.

If, by chance the state's system gets slow and experiences glitches, we will be ready to revert to our backup sites.

Officials from the SOS office told me they've upgraded their system this year and have backups in place. From the media review I was able to take of the site, it looks much easier to track election results this year than in years past.

For example, on school levy questions, you don't have to jump around to each county a school district might be in. You can simply get all the results under that question.

And with any luck, we'll get that good ol' print edition out with most, if not all, of the results. We push our press start back about two hours on election night, holding the presses until the last minute to bring you all the lastest results.

Why we don't comment on crime stories

Crime stories can be the most controversial and some say most intriguing of all the stories we publish.

Readers will often wonder why we don't take a stand on some of the cases on our opinion pages and even more importantly, why we don't generally allow online comments or letters to the editor on pending criminal cases.

The main reason: We're trying to balance the people's right to know and the people's right to free speech with the fair trial rights of the accused.

The question has been raised again by many readers given the high profile nature of Minnesota State University football coach Todd Hoffner's case involving charges of child pornography.

Our competitors in Minneapolis at the Star Tribune have ventured into the waters of commentary on the case. Columnist Gail Rosenblum wrote an column on the case the same Sunday Star Tribune Editor Nancy Barnes explained the newspaper's reporting of the case.

A few weeks later, the Star Tribune took the unusual step of publishing on its opinion pages an editorial essentially holding the Blue Earth County Attorney's Office feet to the fire to justify their handling of charges. The editorial challenged the county attorneys office to provide more definitive information that justify the continuation of the charges.

Blue Earth County Attorney Ross Arneson responded by deferring comment, saying the county attorneys office was not going to try the case in the newspaper.

Certainly, the case has people talking. Some question the validity of the charges. We're withholding judgment mainly because we'd like to see the justice system run its course. We'd like to understand the case and the law more fully.

It's always dangerous venturing an opinion on the case without knowledge of all the facts. We don't have access to interviews that may have been conducted. We haven't even been able to see the tapes in question.

Laws prevent public disclosure of much evidence before it is submitted at trial. There's always more to the story when you see the entire case file. Unfortunately, that usually isn't public available until the case goes to trial or is settled.

We certainly don't agree with everything the Blue Earth County attorneys office does. We've even challenged it in at least two or three formal legal battles. But we've generally waited for criminal trials to play out, unless we feel there is some egregious violation of a public records law.

We've also rejected letters to the editor on the case and generally most online comments for the same reasons we defer.

And while there is sometimes not much public sympathy for those accused of crime, our laws require a fair trial. There's no law the media has to be abide by that, but we feel compelled by our ethics and sense of fairness.

There will be plenty of time for commentary, criticism and discussion once justice has taken its course.

Will the fed action create jobs?

Big news today: the Federal Reserve is buying some $40 billion in mortgage backed securities a month to stimulate the economy.

From the Associated Press story:


The Fed said it will spend $40 billion a month to buy mortgage bonds for as long as it deems necessary to make home buying more affordable. It plans to keep short-term interest rates at record lows through mid-2015 — six months longer than previously planned. And it's ready to try other stimulative measures if hiring doesn't pick up.

"The idea is to quicken the recovery," Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a news conference. But Bernanke made clear that he thinks the economy will need the Fed's help even after the recovery strengthens.

The good news is that this activity will likely keep home mortgage rates at their historic low, keep interest rates on other things low and hopefully bolster the stock market, which is back to its pre-2008 recession highs but still off its all time high of 14,000 by about 700 points.

If interest rates are low, it's easier to buy a home, which we know is key to household formation of consumer units (families) who spend a bunch of money on things like refrigerators, furniture and other durable goods, demand for which creates a lot of good jobs.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said part of the aim is to boost the stock market because people feel richer, more likely to spend. And I suppose that is partly true for SOME of the people.

But I was thinking of the Fed action while reading another story on why lots of baby boomers have put off retirement: their retirement earnings have been hammered by stock market but also low interest rates.

So they remain in the workforce.

Here's a telling fact from a good story in the Kansas City Star:


"In 1991, just one in 10 workers told the Employee Benefit Research Institute that they planned to wait to retire until they were older than 65. By 2007, three in 10 said that.
This year? More than four in 10."

And another:

"The number of older workers has grown more rapidly than any other age group in the last few years. This year, 18.6 percent of those 65 and older were participating in the labor force, compared with 13 percent in 2002."

And when you think of our main economic problem right now - too many people are unemployed - you can see how this is impacting those job numbers.

If seniors stay working past 65, we don't have the normal fill in from younger workers. The jobs from retirees are no longer opening up at the rate they once did.

This is helping in part to create higher unemployment and for a longer period of time.

The bigger question then is: Will any jobs program short of getting those 65 year olds to retire going to work?

We'd be better to work on incentives to get them to retire. Maybe a one-time exemption from taxes that go with lump sum withdrawals of retirement money. Maybe make medicare eligibility at 62 instead of 65.

Our job problem may be more related to demographics than structural issues in the private sector.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/18/3768575/for-many-boomers-retirement-age.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/18/3768575/for-many-boomers-retirement-age.html#storylink=cpy

Voter ID: two views of fraud

A presentation by the League of Women Voters St. Peter Chapter on problems with Minnesota's Voter ID amendment drew cheers from the downtown Kiwanis Club at its Monday meeting.

Mostly because of the argument that there is very little voter impersonation fraud that has ever been uncovered and the amendment therefore is an unnecessary infringement on voting rights.

North Mankato City Council candidate and budget watchdog Kim Spears brings this story to my attention: "Maryland democratic congressional candidate drops out of race after allegations she voted in two states."
Officials of the Maryland Democratic party asked candidate Wendy Rosen to withdraw from the race after they investigated themselves the allegations of voting fraud and were confident they were true.

So we find ourselves with two points of view on the idea of the Voter ID amendment.

The St. Peter LWV outlined in a leaflet that it opposes the Photo ID/Elections Amendment.

Spokeswomen Lynn Solo and Helen Baumgartner made the case, and they emphasized their presentation was intended to be factual not political.

They lay out in a kind of flow chart the amendment language, then the language in the statute and then raise questions about the questions left unanswered by the language.

Essentially, the league's position is that the change in voting laws sought by the amendment will be "extreme and unnecessary changes" that it will "create hurdles" to voting for absentee and military voters, that it will be "harder for seniors  to vote," and end "election day registration as we know it."

They say it's another "unfunded government mandate" and will create a new system of provisional balloting that increases property taxes and other vital services as a result will be cut.

Spears says the Maryland case is "an interesting situation bearing on the upcoming ballot initiative."

Certainly, the Maryland case will be a high profile kind of media-attention getting case that will focus on the issue of voter fraud and impersonation, though the Washington Post said it was unclear if state Voter ID laws would prevent this kind of multi-state voter fraud.

I also don't consider the Downtown Kiwanis Club a bastion of liberalism, so the applause for the LWV was a bit surprising.

The Free Press has written two editorials on the Voter ID amendment, basically arguing there are a lot of questions and how they are answered could very well cost taxpayers more money to solve a problem that may not be as big as we think.

It all comes down to how one wants to solve problems in an imperfect voting system. Budget hawks should of course be willing to apply a strict cost/benefit analysis, the cost being the expenses associated with photo IDs and the benefits being the prevention of fraud. But there also may be a cost in preventing legitimate people from voting.

I will say this: If the amendment passes and it becomes law eventually, there will be plenty of stories on how legitimate citizens were denied their right to vote through some government snafu.

Those stories will be rampant because almost every news organization in the country is going to find one or two cases - easily - with the way this will be set up.

Medicare costs need to be controlled

Both Obama and Romney campaigns don't want to tell seniors the ugly truth: Medicare costs have to be reined in. They're not sustainable. And we either need to cut benefits or raise taxes to pay for it or change pretty significantly the way Medicare services are delivered.

We might have to do a little of each.

There's a great explanation on the claims of each campaign and how they're deceptive on Medicare at FactCheck.org. They also give great background on the history of Medicare.

It's not surprising that Congress and the president have raised Medicare payroll taxes several times over the years to help keep the health care benefits flowing to in important voting constituency.

But after reading it, you can't come to any other conclusion that we either need to rein in benefits or raise taxes to pay for care that's costly and inefficient and will eventually consume a greater share of GDP.

But the good news is we know how to cut Medicare costs. We only have to have the courage to do it.

Obama's plan was to reduce payments to health care providers and make them share the pain of cost reductions. Critics argue it might not be enough, and some providers might stop taking Medicare patients. He also planned to cut subsidies to private insurance plans offering Medicare.

Romney and Ryan want to allow more private insurance into serving Medicare patients as well as leaving traditional Medicare in place, figuring competition will drive down costs. But that only works if we have a lot of medical providers competing. And more and more, the health care market is consolidating and getting fewer competitors. Some worry that the private insurers will pick the healthiest seniors and leave the really sick ones for the government to serve through traditional Medicare.

Seniors today and those of the near future, Baby Boomers, have to get realistic about all of this and realize they are not going to be able to go to the doctor for every little ailment and have the government mostly pay for it.

They're going to have to go to a more managed care system, where they learn prevention, where they learn they can see a nurse instead of a doctor.

This is not Medicare as we know it. It has to change.

I took a call from a guy today who said he didn't rape his daughter

I took a call from a guy today who said he didn't rape his daughter.

Now you know the kind of calls newspaper editors get.

Not always pretty. Not always pleasant. Hard to say if they're real.

This man wanted to know if we wanted to do a story about a wrongly accused person who was going to prison and whose life and reputation would be basically ended because prosecutors were charging him with said crime.

I told him we follow these kinds of stories through official court actions. If there's a trial, we would report the defense's case.

We don't however, sit down with those accused and try to do what it takes investigators, prosecutors and defense lawyers hundreds of hours to do: determine a verdict.

We wouldn't have the resources nor the desire, nor is it our purpose, to be judge, jury and jailer.

Still, for some reason he must have thought the newspaper could help.

It's not unheard of that people are falsely charged with a crime. For all I know, he may be innocent.

And if he is, the news will be: He was charged with a crime. A heinous crime perhaps. And he was acquitted.

We always report the verdict. An if he's innocent, that gets in the newspaper.

In the end, we'd be willing to tell his side of it, but we we're going to do the justice system's job. He didn't seem satisfied with this answer.

He said never mind and hung up.

Naked bean bagger escaped identification

Many people I talk to say they would rather not admit to some of the things they did in college or when they were young.

I suspect that will be the case with the "Naked bean bagger" we wrote a story about a few weeks ago.

Police were called by neighbors who reported the young gent was playing a game of outdoor bean bag, or "corn hole" by some, in his birthday suit.

The original story is better than I can tell it, so if you hadn't seen it, here it is.

Suffice it to say, the gent attempted to hide from police, leaving his clothes, and importantly his I.D., behind. The police showed up but couldn't get him to answer the door. They thus secured his clothes and I.D. as "evidence."

In the news business, the story of the "Naked bean bagger" is what we call a bona fide "talker." It's a story that is not terribly important in the scheme of things. It's certainly not a public safety hazard or crime spree, but it is nonetheless, something we know from all our Google web analytics will drive traffic at our website through the roof.

It will bury the needle on our "Chartbeat," a service we subscribe to that measures activity on our website in real time.

We were not disappointed. With a little help from the nationally known weird news website Fark.com, that story generated about 70,000 page views. Fark seeks weird news from websites and then creates a link from their website to the news website.

Fark also provides a bit of commentary on just how funny a story might be.

Of our story, the website said "Headline about police responding to naked bean bag game is okay, but could have been true Fark gold if they'd used the other name the article gives for the game"

Our headline: "Naked bean bag game turns into hide and seek with suspect."
Fark's suggested head for "gold status" "Naked corn hole game turns into hide and seek with suspect"
 
Fark has thousands of followers to catch all the weird news from around the country and so when you are "farked" you get a lot of traffic to your website.

The story and all the details were part of the public record. That means name of person, address is included.

However, we chose not to name the young man in a good-hearted attempt to protect him from embarrassment. He's not really a criminal the public needs to fear, at least in our minds. In the news business, there's not a compelling reason to name him.

We suspect there may have been some alcohol involved here and it was an awfully hot day, in the young man's defense.

We know people know who this young man and is and it's probably all over someone's Twitter account, but we try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We here at The Free Press were all young once too.