In the last several weeks The Minaret has reported multiple crimes involving University of Tampa students. We do not solely focus on reporting the crimes of students on or off campus, but when something happens it is our job to let the university community know.
These recent events have led the staff to make tough decisions on how and what to report on these crimes.
We want to let our readers know about how we make the decisions to run certain things involving crimes on campus.
When it comes to students involved in crimes off campus, The Minaret staff checks the Hillsborough County Arrest Inquiry for students, faculty and staff who were arrested. The information is public. If anyone visits mugshotstampabay.com and searches UT’s area code (33606) both the pictures and names of people arrested in that area can be found. From there the arrest report can be opened. If the charges of the individual are felony charges, it is our policy to investigate the story and run the names and pictures of the student, faculty or staff accused of a crime. Part of the investigation invoices contacting the arresting agency and requesting a police report. The information in the report is open to the public; newspapers have the right to use the information in the report for a story. This information is made public by the Florida Statutes Chapter 119 also known as the Florida Public Records law, which states that the citizens have the right to know what happens in incidents that occur in their community.
The Minaret takes this information to tell the UT community what is going on within the community involving students, faculty and staff. In the most recent incident, The Minaret reported that three UT students were arrested on felony drug charges. The reports for all three students were requested from the Tampa Police Department. In the TPD report, it stated that UT security was notified by the person across the hall that one of the students was in possession of cocaine. We reported the information as stated in the police report.
After circulation of the Nov. 20 issue when this article was complete, approximately 1,800 copies out of the 2,000 copies of The Minaret delivered were removed from the racks and thrown away in various garbage cans around campus. The Minaret had ordered 2,500 copies. Security found the students responsible. The UT security report stated that they stole the papers because they believed that a sentence in the article made them look bad, and they did not want people to read it. Removing The Minarets from racks across campus is essentially a way of censoring the press, even though in addition to the paper copy we have the online edition.
The staff consisting of writers, photographers, illustrators, section editors, online editors, copy editors and both the editor-in-chief and the assistant editor-in-chief put in countless hours to inform the UT students what’s going on in and around campus. It is not our job to protect the identities of the students on campus, and we do not intentionally report these crimes to see students suffer.
As student journalists, providing news to the campus is what we aim to do, and it’s a passion for us. We will continue to keep the university informed.
So you should pursue legal action against them. Or are you just letting people know you’re purpose?