OHIO — Thieves stole thousands of copies of the student newspaperat Ohio State University Monday.
According to Chris Newmarker, editor of the university’s student newspaper,The Lantern, the stolen papers will cost several thousand dollarsin lost advertising revenue and production costs.The Lantern’spress run is about 30,000 papers.
Newmarker said he believes the thieves were trying to thwart the distributionof an article reporting a student government investigation of undergraduatestudent government finances and student government president’s decisionto secretly use a discretionary fund to give a $2,250 stipend to his chiefof staff.
“The circumstances point toward somebody in undergraduate student governmentdoing this,” Newmarker said.
He said members of The Lantern staff found many of the discardednewspapers in dumpsters around campus.
“As I was walking to campus yesterday I noticed that everyLanternstand was empty. Then we find out it was like that all over campus,” Newmarkersaid. “Papers were taken from the union, the library, and the south dorms.”
Newmarker said the campus police would not let the paper’s adviser filea theft complaint, insisting instead that she file a complaint allegingimproper use of The Lantern.
“If someone took a few napkins from the dining commons it wouldn’t betheft, but if someone empties out the stockroom of all of the napkins,that is theft,” Newmarker said in response to the police’s reasoning.
According to Newmarker, the interim vice president of student affairs,Bill Hall, said student affairs will conduct its own investigation intowhether or not members of student government were involved in the theft.
In a Feb. 6 article in The Lantern, Hall said those responsiblefor the theft will face a hearing before the student judiciary.