Newsday's Bad News 1: Circulation Scandal

These days the scandals you're reading about in the morning newspaper are all about your morning newspaper. Newsday has been faking its circulation figures.

These revelations came as Newsday's owner, the Chicago based Tribune Co., started cleaning house, naming Timothy Knight, as Newsday's new publisher, replacing the retiring Ray Jansen. Also retiring, Louis Sito, a VP who headed advertising and circulation at Newsday, and at Hoy, the Spanish language daily also cited for faking circulation figures.

Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon has opened an investigation into possible criminality.

Prompted by advertiser lawsuits, Newsday admitted last month that it overstated circulation by tens of thousands in its daily and Sunday editions, allegedly to prop up advertising rates.

Publisher Jansen blamed a "rogue operation" in the paper's circulation department. But Newsday reports suggest patterns of misconduct over many years, hyping circulation by delivering papers to customers who didn't want them, or to deadbeats who wouldn't pay for them, and dumping piles of unwanted papers on distributors.

But advertisers weren't the only victims of Newsday's tactics.

Without effective competition in Long Island's huge advertising market, Newsday acts as a quasi monopoly, and has betrayed this community's trust with its disgraceful business practices.

The clean sweep of Newsday's business offices shouldn't stop at the circulation department. If Newsday actually has been losing circulation, part of the decline can be traced to reader anger over the unfair and unbalanced manner in which it often covers the news. More about that in another editorial. Suzanne Miller
Plainview, NY

Thank you for finally blasting Newsday and the circulation thievery, but also recognizing that they are extremely biased, and the average Joe reader and voter believes this paper, which has become a rag. I for one have canceled my subscription. Their political ties to the Suozzi administration are disgusting! They are constantly covering up and not printing the real truths about this scandalous administration. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of Newsday. Let's bring back the Long Island Press and Suffolk Life as an honest source of information for Long Island.