This week’s front page features stories on consolidation, the search for a new USF system
president and the abrupt resignation of an adjunct Spanish instructor. Jonah Hinebaugh | The Crow’s Nest
By Crow’s Nest Staff
Several hundred copies of this week’s Crow’s Nest were removed from racks around campus
and placed in nearby trash cans, and university police are investigating.
Whitney Elfstrom, the paper’s editor-in-chief, reported the vandalism to police on Nov. 27.
Officers are now reviewing surveillance video to try to identify the person or people
responsible.
“This is theft, pure and simple,” Elfstrom said, “and we expect campus police and the university
administration to treat it as such.”
She said newspapers disappeared from Crow’s Nest racks in the parking garage, the Student
Life Center, Lowell E. Davis Memorial Hall and The Campus Grind. Virtually all the papers ended up in trash cans nearby.
When editors put new bundles in Davis and the garage, those were also removed, once in Davis
and twice in the garage, she said.
At least 400 copies of the paper – which cost an estimated $200 in paper and printing costs –
were involved, she said.
This week’s front page features stories on the search for a new president for the USF system, debate on the consolidation of USF’s three campuses, and the abrupt resignation of an adjunct Spanish instructor who departed with sharp criticism of her bosses.
The resignation story, which quoted students praising and denouncing the instructor, also prompted spirited comments, pro and con, on the newspaper’s Facebook page.
The theft of college newspapers is a persistent problem on campuses around the country, according to the Student Press Law Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that was founded in 1974 to promote, support and defend the rights of student journalists and their advisers.
“Newspaper theft is a crime,” the law center says on its website, and the people who steal
papers can be charged with larceny, petty theft, criminal mischief or destruction of property.
If there is insufficient evidence or grounds for criminal prosecution, the center says, newspaper
thieves can be punished by campus officials.
Student editors also can file civil lawsuits seeking damages, the center says, and if the
perpetrator is an administrator, employee or faculty member at a public school, he or she has
likely violated the First Amendment and can be sued under civil rights laws.
Mindful of the vandalism around the country, The Crow’s Nest has this warning on page 6 every
week:
“Because of high production costs, members of the USFSP community are permitted one copy
per issue. Where available, additional copies may be purchased for 10 cents each by contacting
the newspaper’s editor-in-chief or managing editor. Newspaper theft is a crime. Those who
violate the single copy rule may be subject to civil and criminal prosecution and/or university
discipline.”
The Crow’s Nest prints 800 copies of its weekly paper, which is placed in 16 racks and left on
tables in several spots around campus each Monday.
The paper’s annual budget, which comes from students’ Activities and Services fees, is $51,572
in 2018-2019, with $12,500 for newsprint and printing, $34,302 for salaries, and the rest for
staff training and photo and office expenses.
This is not the first time copies of the paper have been stolen or turned upside down in the
racks to conceal the top of the front page.
Two years ago, at a time the paper was scrutinizing the activities of Student Government and
reporting that SG’s vice president-elect was under investigation for sexual assault, a number of
papers disappeared or were flipped over in the racks.
While the ‘16-’17 editorial staff was unable to identify who was responsible, former SG senator
Albert Moreno confirmed this week that some SG members turned papers over to conceal
headlines from potential students and their parents while they toured campus.
Two years earlier, at least one bundle of papers that featured a story about a sexual assault on
campus was dumped from a rack in the SLC.
The Student Press Law Center has recorded eight newspaper theft cases around the country in
2018, according to its website.
In the most recent case, hundreds of copies of the paper at Colgate University in New York
were stolen from several academic buildings. The paper had a front-page story about the men’s
swimming and diving team being suspended for hazing.
A university investigation found that three students – including two on the swim team – were
responsible for some of the thefts. Two were given a warning and the third was put on
probation and asked to pay $100 in restitution, the law center said.
Earlier this year, 450 copies of the paper at the University of Oklahoma that featured a story
about sexual harassment allegations against a drama professor were stolen. And at Tennessee
Tech University, a student admitted stealing copies of the paper.
At some campuses where the student paper is distributed for free, administrators have
concluded that thefts do not constitute a criminal offense, even though they may violate rules
on student conduct.
But the Student Law Press Center contends that theft of newspapers is a crime because it
deprives students of their property – the student paper.
On its website, the center quotes Frank LoMonte, its executive director from 2008 to 2017, on
an analogy he liked to offer about the theft of papers that are distributed for free.
“If I go into the Salvation Army soup kitchen, and instead of taking one bowl of soup, I grab the
entire kettle of soup and pour it down the sewer drain, I’ve definitely stolen property,” he said.
“It’s certainly illegal to destroy property for purposes of preventing other people from using of
it – even if the property was not being offered for sale,” said LoMonte, who now heads a First
Amendment think tank at the University of Florida.
Stealing student papers is also a form of censorship, the center says.
“When an individual or group of people decide they don’t want the public to have access to
information and take it into their own hands, it’s detrimental to freedom of speech,” said staff
attorney Sommer Ingram Dean on the center’s website.
Newspaper theft can be prosecuted and has been, according to the law center.
In 2003, the mayor of Berkeley, California, pleaded guilty and was fined for his role in stealing
1,000 copies of the University of California student paper that carried an editorial endorsement
of his campaign opponent.
In 2005, three students at Morehead State University in Kentucky were charged with criminal
mischief for stealing more than 7,000 student papers, and a student at the University of
Wisconsin in Milwaukee was charged with a misdemeanor in the theft of 2,500 papers.
The Minaret, the student paper at the University of Tampa, has reported at least three cases of
theft in recent years.
In 2007, a chemistry professor acknowledged that he threw out dozens of papers because of a
headline on the front page – “Non-student Threatens to Kill Austin Hall Residents.”
The professor told the editors he felt displaying the paper during freshman orientation gave
parents an unfair picture of security on campus.
Then in 2016, a student turned himself in to campus administrators and admitted stealing papers that had a story about an alleged sexual assault at USF Tampa. The assault involved members of a fraternity that also has a chapter at UT.
Information from Whitney Elfstrom and Anna Bryson of The Crow’s Nest staff, the Student Press
Law Center, the Minaret and the Tampa Bay Times was used in this report.
