Hot off the presses and into hands of thieves

LEXINGTON, KY. —  Megan Boehnke, the editor of the University of Kentucky’s student newspaper, came up with a big, controversial scoop for last Monday’s edition. Under a banner headline, she announced that two students and a recent graduate had been legally drunk when they died in high-profile accidents this year.

But someone -- who apparently didn’t want the story out -- decided to scoop up Boehnke’s scoop.

Early Monday, more than 4,700 copies of the Kentucky Kernel went missing from bins around campus. The free paper’s total press run is 17,000, but enough copies were stolen to dull the buzz for a while.

As censorship goes, snapping up truckloads of local newspapers ranks among the bluntest of tactics -- right up there with serving hemlock to Socrates. And it’s obviously not the kind of problem big-city dailies are worried about.

But newspaper theft is a recurring and pernicious issue for college newspapers, and one that has endured, strangely, through the Internet era, when most controversial articles are usually just a Google search away.

The Kentucky theft was the 11th at an American campus since the school year started, according to the Student Press Law Center.

The Virginia-based nonprofit has logged an average of 24 incidents a year since it began keeping serious tabs in 1992.

“It’s kind of a consistent problem, and a very difficult one to deal with and solve,” said Executive Director Mark Goodman. “It’s somewhat insidious, because it’s out of the hands of the newspaper staff to do something to prevent it.”

Punishing the thieves can be tricky: Because college papers are usually free of charge, prosecutors sometimes refuse to treat their disappearance as a theft, though newspapers must sometimes reimburse advertisers.

Some states are trying to remedy the problem. California will soon join Maryland and Colorado in explicitly criminalizing the theft of free newspapers. Starting in January, the taking of more than 25 free papers will result in a fine of up to $250 for first-time offenders.

The law was pushed strongly by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. after a number of campus newspaper thefts this year.

At Glendale Community College, 2,000 copies of the student paper El Vaquero disappeared in June. The issue contained a report on student suicide that named a recent victim. College President John A. Davitt, who has since retired, was upset that the article was going to appear, but he denied having had the copies removed, El Vaquero reported.

At Pasadena City College, 5,000 copies of its student paper, the Courier, were stolen in May. Torn-up copies showed up at the newspaper office, with a note that claimed the Latino group MEChA was responsible. A student later admitted to taking and shredding the copies.

And at Cal State Chico, environmental activists stole 2,500 copies of the Orion, the campus weekly, because they were upset by an editorial. According to the Student Press Law Center, an anonymous caller threatened to “recycle all copies.”

None of the California cases resulted in prosecutions, said Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Assn.

In Kentucky, campus police are pursuing the case. The cover of the Kernel, like those of many student papers, states that the first issue is free, but additional issues cost 25 cents.

Because the total value of the stolen copies is more than $300, the police say the act probably constitutes felony theft.

Acting Police Chief Joe Monroe said the department had identified a female suspect from surveillance cameras.

An arrest had not been made.

Editor Boehnke said she knew her article was causing a stir in the days before its publication: When she called one victim’s mother for a comment, the mother asked her not to print the story, saying it would be hurtful to the family. Then Boehnke received more than a dozen calls and e-mails from the victim’s family and friends urging her not to publish. Some were measured, others “hysterical,” she said.

After consulting her faculty advisor and other journalism professors, Boehnke decided to publish.

Headlined “Students who died were legally drunk,” it was the lead story, reporting that at least one Kentucky student had died in an alcohol-related incident in five of the last six years.

On Monday morning, she got a call from the newsroom. The paper -- and her story -- had disappeared from the heavily trafficked hallways of the central campus.

The story, she notes, is still available on the paper’s website (www.kykernel.com), and the paper itself still available elsewhere on campus.

And a number of national websites that focus on education and the press have picked up news of the controversy.

“That’s the thing,” Monroe said. “All these people who wanted to suppress the story have only magnified the story.”

It is, of course, the availability of papers on campuses that makes their theft so tempting. University of Kentucky police say that most of the thefts occurred within a mile of the Kernel offices.

But that concentration has also helped college newspapers avoid broader industry doldrums. Advertisers continue to be attracted to a medium tightly focused on an audience that is, by definition, young, educated and upwardly mobile.

Even in the Internet era, no product has come along to challenge college papers as the preeminent place for campus-specific news, according to Samantha Skey, a senior vice president of Alloy Media & Marketing, which places advertisements in college newspapers.

With so many college papers posting their content online these days, observers can only guess why newspaper theft remains so prevalent.

Goodman of the Student Press Law Center blames college educators for failing to instill in students a proper respect for divergent viewpoints.

But Skey thinks it might have something to do with the permanence of the printed word in the interactive age.

Maybe, she said, 21st century students see distasteful news in the paper “and they’re frustrated that they can’t edit it.”

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richard.fausset@latimes.com