An omnipresent FrontBurnervian passes along this item about Newsday and the DMN. In the wake of the arrest of three former circulation managers from Newsday, the author notes:
[S]ome credit should surely go to Newsday reporters, who turned their investigative resources on the business side of their own company. The American Journalism Review contrasted Newsday’s reaction with that of the Dallas Morning News, which was also caught in its own circulation controversy. We now know a great deal about the circulation fraud at Newsday, AJR noted, because a “team of Newsday reporters began an aggressive investigation soon after the story broke. The paper has published high-profile, deeply detailed articles over a period of many months, describing some of the same practices alleged in the Dallas suit–intense pressure to falsify numbers, papers delivered to people who never asked for them, papers thrown in dumpsters and so forth.”
The AJR also noted that the Newsday reporters’ stories revealed wrongdoing that went beyond what their company had admitted. By contrast, AJR noted the Dallas Morning News published very little about its circulation practices and “had not told its readers anything about the allegations in the shareholders suit.”
While it is a challenge for Newsday to regain the trust of advertisers, at least their reporters were allowed to go after the story. By contrast, morale at the Dallas Morning News is said to be very low.
