Lariat newspaper delivery turns up missing
The newspapers are delivered in bundles and were left outside the LRC’s loading dock last night. (Lariat staff)
The delivery of Saddleback College’s Lariat newspaper, ready for next-day distribution, was taken from the outside loading dock area on the east side of the Learning Resource Center.
Orange County Commercial Printing delivered the newspapers around 9:30 p.m. yesterday. A photograph, sent via text message, confirming the delivery, was sent to Ali Dorri, the Lariat’s instructional assistant. However, when Dori arrived this morning around 9 a.m. the shipment was nowhere to be found.
“After I arrived at the proposed drop spot near the LRC and realized that they hadn’t arrived, I called the maintenance staff, Dorri said. “I was told that it is against their policy to move anything that isn’t in a trash bin.”
The delivery consisted of 4000 individual newspapers, divided into 15 bundles of 300. The total cost for printing and shipment is $500. The costs are covered by advertising revenue from the paper.
Dorrri filed an incident report with the Saddleback College Campus Police. The report has yet to be investigated at the time of publishing, and the campus police had no comment this afternoon.
Student Press Law Center intern Samantha Sune estimates that nine cases of newspaper theft nationwide have been reported by colleges to the SPLC.
SPLC Attorney Advocate Adam Goldstein suggested taking simple steps in this type of situation
“The first thing I would do is check the trash and dumpsters,” Goldstein said. “I would definitely also file a police report.”
In relation to the compensation for the missing newspapers, Goldstein used previous cases as a barometer for the damages.
“Theft is theft; it is criminal offense with criminal penalties. The most likely motive is that someone doesn’t want something in the paper to be published, or the perpetrators may just be stupid,” Goldstein said. “We had one case where newspapers were stolen to make paper machete for a float.”
Dorri expressed concern about why the papers would turn up missing.
“As far as I know this is the first time something like this has ever happened, ” Dorri said. “It is unfortunate because the printing is being paid for by hard-earned advertising dollars and the students worked hard and spent hours upon hours working on the paper.”
The newspapers were reprinted and delivered early this evening, however the cost arrangement is still unclear.
“We hope to get a reduced deal from the publishing company for the reprinting ,” Dorri said.