Drug busts, Obama coverage etc.

[Free Press Editor Joe Spear]

Welcome to "In the newsroom" a blog by Free Press reporters and editors about what's happening on their beats and discussions about news coverage. Feel free to give us story tips or comment on news coverage.

[Free Press Editor Joe Spear]

I invite forum participants to assess our coverage of the inauguration of Barack Obama. We gave it very unusual and big play with a full size photo covering the entire front page, and that photo wrapped around to the back with more photos from the reaction around the world. The reason: His inauguration was historic on several fronts, first African American, as well as the unusual aspects of his candidacy.The crowds were also record. We devoted a full four or five pages to national stories inside, also much more than any other inauguration

[Free Press Editor Joe Spear]

A poll we conducted last week on our Web site asked people if they thought drug crime was on the rise in Mankato. A majority thought it was. Newsroom coverage of crime typically is handled by police reporter Dan Nienaber. Let's see if we can get him to give us his take on this.

[Ellen Mrja]

The front page wrap around photo of Pres.Obama's inauguration was much appreciated by those of us who collect newspaper front pages during momentous events. And this was one, undoubtedly. Great work.

Papers across the nation made sure they were ready for a huge spike in sales on the day after. The New York Times, which had been caught short the day following the election, ran one million extra copies. These will become some of the greatest cultural artifacts of the early 21st century.

Of course, the inauguration was not even reported in North Korea. At all.

If you'd like to see a mashup collection of how other newspapers around the globe covered the inauguration, just click the link here. (http://c6.going.com/obama/inauguration_headlines.html)

[Dan Nienaber, reporter]

A poll we conducted last week on our Web site asked people if they thought drug crime was on the rise in Mankato. A majority thought it was. Newsroom coverage of crime typically is handled by police reporter Dan Nienaber. Let's see if we can get him to give us his take on this.

There have been some drug busts involving large amounts of marijuana recently, so I can see why people would think drug crimes are up.

Most high-level arrests in the area are made by the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force, and its investigators often spend months working on a case or series of cases. As I've seen with task forces in other regions where I've worked, arrests tend to come in spurts because investigators wait to arrest lower level offenders until after they've used them to find larger suppliers.

Drug task forces in both Mankato and New Ulm have had very large marijuana busts recently. In both cases, task force leaders said the suppliers were bringing the pot here from down south because there is a market for it. The market for illegal marijuana has decreased in California and neighboring states, they said, because new laws there allow a large number of people to grow marijuana legally.

There are a couple other things I've noticed during the past year or so. One is there seems to be more reports of crack cocaine arrests. The arrests also involve people with criminal records in larger cities. There have also been indications that some of the people arrested have connections to very organized suppliers.

Another thing I've been seeing, that I hadn't before in Mankato or other places I've worked, is arrests for possession and sales of ecstasy. The hallucinogen has been well known on the coasts for years, but I rarely heard about police officers finding it on people in Minnesota until about a year ago. Drug dealers could be using it to fill the demand for methamphetamine, which had been very common in the Midwest because its ingredients were easy to find and labs could be easily set up in rural areas. Laws restricting the sale of psuedoephederine, a main ingredient, have changed that.

Drug use tends to be more common in college towns. So maybe some of our readers have more insight on this than I do. I'd like to hear what they know.

Dan
dnienaber@mankatofreepress.com