Forty-five college newspapers have signed a petition condemning a legal complaint brought by a professional newspaper against a college paper.

The petition calls the Ames Daily Tribune of Iowa "ethically reprehensible" and "a threat against all student newspapers in this country" for attempting to limit the advertising of the Iowa State Daily.

Tribune Editor and co-owner Michael G. Gartner, a Pulitzer prize winner and former president of NBC News, contends that the Daily is using its tax-free status, university subsidized circulation and non-student business staff to compete unfairly with the Tribune.

Citing an Iowa anti-competition law, Gartner said he wants the Daily to restrict its advertising to on-campus businesses and the tavern and restaurant district immediately off-campus.

"We are up against a university that has hundreds of millions of dollars," Gartner said. "They don't have to pay the property taxes. I do. They don't have to pay salary taxes as I do, they don't have to pay rent as I do...[It is] unfair competition."

The Tribune has a paid circulation of 11,000, whereas the Daily has a free circulation of 14,000.

Keesia D. Wirt, editor-in-chief of the Daily, said that both students and businesses would benefit from free market forces.

"Students use the businesses in town. It's where they eat and shop," Wirt said. "There doesn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't be able have our advertisements in place."

Students editors across the country said the legal action could pose a threat to all state-affiliated newspapers because it argues that newspapers at public universities are essentially "governmental bodies" and are bound to the same restrictions as all public agencies.

A ruling against the Iowa State Daily, they say, could set a precedent for other suits which could significantly decrease advertising revenue at college papers and eventually threaten editorial control.

"If we couldn't advertise off-campus, we couldn't have a paper," said Daily Nebraskan Editor Paula M. Lavigne, who started the petition drive.

The petition was circulated via University Wire, a three-year-old service that daily distributes the best stories of 130 college newspapers on the Internet.

"I think it is ethically reprehensible that the Tribune would sue a campus paper in an effort to drive them out of the market," said Michael M. Lazarus, the founder of University Wire and a 1996 graduate from the Northwestern School of Journalism.

The complaint concerning the freedom to advertise off-campus is one of a series of legal actions the Tribune has filed against the Daily.

In a case decided last March, the Tribune sued the Daily to get complete access to the Daily's records, including advertising contacts and tactics.

The judge ruled in favor of the Tribune, saying the Daily was not a freestanding non-profit organization as it had claimed. Iowa laws allow independent organizations to compete freely with private businesses, while government organizations may not due to anti-competition laws, Wirt said.