Update: Three students have admitted they stole these papers for a university prank, not because of controversial content on the front page.
Hundreds of copies of Pepperdine University’s student newspaper have been reported stolen “likely to censor a front-page story about a student who is being charged with drunken driving,” Anna Schiffbauer writes for the Student Press Law Center:
“Elizabeth Smith, the newspaper’s adviser, said staff members noticed an unusual number of the Sept. 25 (paper) were missing from stands outside the library and student center on Sept. 26 and reported it to the university’s Department of Public Safety. They realized the newspapers normally outside the International Programs office were taken on Sept. 28, Smith said.”
Schiffbauer writes that “about 350” copies of Pepperdine University’s student newspaper were stolen in October 2012 after the paper published an article about a student charged with a DUI.
In 2013, there were at least 10 incidents of student newspapers being stolen nationwide. In April, Poynter’s Kristen Hare reported members of the Delta Chi fraternity at Central Michigan University were shown in tweets burning copies of the student newspaper there.
