UTAH — An unknown number of copies of The DailyUniverse, Brigham Young University’s student newspaper, were takenfrom newsstands earlier this month and dumped into recycling bins.
Daily Universe employees received an e-mail at about 2 p.m. on June10 saying that someone was seen throwing copies of the newspaper into recyclingbins at about 11 a.m. that morning.
“We sent our editors out to see if it was true,” said KayleneArmstrong, The Daily Universe adviser. “All of the papers in theoutdoor racks and inside of the student union were thrown neatly into recyclingbins.”
The newspaper prints about 10,000 copies, Monday through Friday, during thesummer. The newspaper filed a report with Brigham Young University Police buthas not heard of any suspects. BYU police department officials did not respondto requests for comment by Friday afternoon.
Armstrong said editors at the Daily Universe took thousands ofnewspapers out of adjacent recycling bins and put them back on newsstands,although she acknowledged that there was no way to know just how many, if any,were stolen.
“The biggest problem was that most of our papers are picked upbetween 7:30 and 9 a.m. The individual was spotted throwing away newspapers at11 a.m.,” Armstrong said. “We don’t know how many peopledidn’t get to read the paper.”
On the front page that day was an article, titled “Suffering inSilence,” dealing with the psychological effects of rape, includingpost-traumatic stress disorder and bulimia. Armstrong believes the article wasthe reason behind the incident.
Within the original article, an individual who had experienced bulimia wasquoted by name as an example of what eating disorders rape victims may develop. The problem, Armstrong said, was that the individual had not reported beingraped.
Armstrong does not believe the reporter had intentionally misrepresentedthe individual as a rape victim but rather worded the article in a way thatincorrectly suggested it.
The Daily Universe provides copies of its articles and full PDFcopies of each issue online. Armstrong said that the individual’s nameand quotation were taken out of the PDF copy of the newspaper and thestand-alone version of the article was deleted from the newspaper’s Website.
The Daily Universe ran a story about the theft in the nextday’s newspaper. In the June 11 article, Joshua Flake, DailyUniverse news editor, wrote, “If somebody has a problem with thepaper, they should write a letter or e-mail or call an editor.”