Student newspapers facing threats

Patrik Kronqvist writes about student newspapers in Europe that pay a high price for their investigative journalism. From Spine:

..Mark Sciriha is the editor of the newspaper Insiter at the university of Malta. This autumn the newspaper revealed the result of an investigation that showed that there were more bacteria on the tables of the cafeteria than on the seats of its toilets. – When we published the news, suddenly a thousand newspapers disappeared from our newspaper stands. After that we were sued by the company that ran the cafeteria, he says.

In March Mark Sciriha and the writer of the article, Anthony Gatt, are going to court in Malta, charged with defamation. They stand the risk of having to pay a big damage. Mark Sciriha was one of the participants at a conference for European student newspapers in Budapest in the end of November. Remarkably many of the participants testified about difficulties in carrying on with the investigative journalism in their home countries...