To combat the newspaper thefts -- many of which have been linked to disgruntled students, athletes, administrators and local politicians -- some newspapers have imposed limits on the number of newspapers a student can take for free and a cost per issue for additional copies to ensure that stolen issues can be accounted for financially.

Other publications have tried to promote forums where students can discuss or protest issues reported on in the newspaper without resorting to stealing them.

At the University of Missouri at Columbia, thieves stole 6,000 copies of the Sept. 9 issue of the student newspaper, The Maneater, that publicly outed a missing student as a homosexual.

The stolen issue featured a controversial cover story about the missing student and a theory behind his disappearance.

Jake Wagman, editor of The Maneater, said the newspapers were stolen sometime during the weekend after Friday's publication. The stolen papers were worth approximately $1,500.

The feature piece, "Six Months Later," which Wagman believes may have prompted the theft, told the story of the disappearance of Damon White, the former president of the university's Legion of Black Collegians and Iota Phi Theta fraternity, through an interview with his mother, Janet White. The story included the progression of the case since White's disappearance on March 2.

Janet White told Maneater reporters that her son's boyfriend, who claimed White gave him the HIV virus, may have had some responsibility for Damon's disappearance.

"The campus did not know [he was gay]," Wagman said. "As far as we know, we outed him [by publishing his mother's comments]."

Wagman said The Maneater does not know who stole the papers.

"It's not a stretch that [the groups White was involved with] were unhappy about the article," Wagman said.

The Maneater is not planning to pursue the case.

"The next day is a new day and a new issue," Wagman said. "Rather than focus on the past, we are just going to keep publishing."

At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 2,000 copies of the Sept. 9 issue of The Echo were stolen. The issue reported on the arrest of two UTC wrestlers who were accused of assaulting another man on Sept. 5.

Sports editor Jamie Lackey said she and news editor Nikki Middlebrooks saw the theft in progress and identified one of three men as a former member of the wrestling team.

The three students involved in the theft were either in some way connected to the wrestling team or members of a fraternity involved with the team, Lackey said. They are now going through university judicial proceedings.

At Ohio State University, 7,500 copies of The Lantern's sports insert section, First Down, were thrown away by an employee of the school's athletic department in late October.

The cover depicted saddened players under the score boards of their three losses accompanied by the headline "Growing Pains." The paper was to be distributed free outside of the stadium before a game on Oct. 30.

First Down editor Chris Tribbey said Chad Schroeder, the marketing associate for the athletic department, called Lantern business manager Ray Catalino and asked The Lantern to refrain from distributing the issue at the game because he disliked the cover and a column inside. The Lanternrefused to comply.

The women's water polo team promised to distribute First Down at the game for The Lantern, but when the polo team came to pick up the newspapers -- which had been left in an open plaza while the distributor parked his truck -- they were missing. The polo team members discovered the newspapers inside trash bins nearby, took them out and began to distribute them, Tribbey said.

Athletic staff members took the newspapers out of the hands of the distributors and threw them away, Tribbey said. The water polo team again retrieved the papers and began distributing them.

"If [athletic staffers] were just offended by it, then they need to grow thicker skin," Tribbey said.

Tribbey questioned whether the athletic employees who stole the papers were protecting their financial interest in the team.

"If they were protecting their dollar, well that's just shameful," he said.

Catalino wrote letters to the university president and the athletic director demanding reimbursement, Tribbey said.

The athletic director agreed to pay the advertisers for the advertisements lost in the copies destroyed, Tribbey said.

At Texas Christian University, student newspaper adviser Eva Rumpf said almost the entire 4,500 run of The Daily Skiff was stolen a day before student elections, possibly because the Nov. 2 issue included a pullout section with candidate profiles and the newspaper editorial board's candidate endorsements.

"We immediately shifted into high gear to try to find a way to get this information out to the campus because the election was being held the very next day," Rumpf said.

The Daily Skiff decided to pay an extra $400 for the insert to run again on election day, Rumpf said. But the next day there were still scattered reports of empty distribution bins, she said.

Editor Jeff Meaddaugh said running the insert again was worth it for the readers, despite the cost to reprint it.

"We regard it as a criminal act because these were our papers for our distribution to our campus -- one per person," Rumpf said.

Witnesses never came forward to identify the perpetrators, but the newspaper staff has heard speculation that the thieves may have been from a fraternity whose candidate was not given an endorsement, Rumpf said.

At the University of Mississippi, the student newspaper's Nov. 1 issue was stolen from four campus buildings and five local off-campus businesses, according to Riley McDermid, managing editor for news.

McDermid said at least 1,500 copies of The Daily Mississippian were stolen, possibly due to an editorial in the issue about local politician Quentin Whitwell.

Whitwell was running for a seat as a Mississippi state representative. He had publicly denounced his opponent, Gray Tollison, for his choices on whom to place on the state college board, McDermid said. Tollison gave priority to minorities to add diversity to the board, while Whitwell said University of Mississippi graduates should be given priority.

McDermid said the editorial criticized Whitwell for the attacks on his opponent and his stance on board representation.

Whitwell, who lost the election, left town shortly after the theft. He is now being investigated by a state elections committee for the newspaper theft, McDermid said.

In New York, a student protested an advertising insert inside Hofstra University's student newspaper by throwing away the inserts.

The advertisement, which contained holocaust revisionist essays, ran in the Oct. 28 issue of The Chronicle. About 1,500 papers were vandalized, editor Shawna VanNess said.

After being discovered by the university's public safety office, the student realized he could be charged for $1,400 worth of newspapers and attempted to reassemble the papers with the inserts, VanNess said. She added that The Chronicle may not be able to charge the student for the newspapers because he had reassembled them.

"We're not really sure we are [pressing charges]," VanNess said. "We are working with the local police."

VanNess said The Chronicle decided to run the ad to spark educated dialogue and debate.

"Instead of burying your head in the sand and pretending like these people don't exist, you deal with them by countering their claims with factual information," VanNess said.

The Chronicle is co-sponsoring a forum with the provost's office to discuss the issues that surfaced with the publication of the advertisement, VanNess said.

At Skidmore College in New York, the admissions director admitted stealing 1,200 copies of The Skidmore News' Nov. 5 issue, which contained a story about a recent anti-gay hate crime.

Admissions director Mary Lou W. Bates wrote a letter of apology to the campus for the theft, which the editors published in The Skidmore News.

Editor Shawn McCormack said the newspaper saw the issue as a matter of free speech at a private school, but he thinks other people in the campus community perceived it as an isolated act.

"[The issue is free press], especially at a private school, where we're not really protected but by the grace of the administration," McCormack said.

Skidmore College administrators decided to file a letter of reprimand for Bates, have her attend lectures on the nature of academic freedom and pay $700, the cost of the papers removed.

At Ocean County College in Dover, N.J., about 85 percent of the student newspaper run was stolen after it published a controversial commentary about a male student who had been interviewed because of his unusual behavior.

Catherine Galioto, editor of The Viking News, said about 2,200 newspapers were taken.

The commentary described a male student who was trying to get a thousand hugs from women for a bet. Galioto said the commentary called the behavior harassment.

"We thought that it wasn't a mature thing [for him] to do," she said.