[LINK] Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive

[Kim Holburn]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/12/wall-street-journal-andrew-langhoff

> Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive
> 
> Andrew Langhoff resigns as European publishing chief after exposure of secret channels of cash to help boost sales figures
> 
> The Wall Street Journal used a controversial scheme to boost its European circulation by allowing sponsors to buy copies in bulk from as little as 1¢. 

> One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.
> 
> The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.
> 
> The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper's management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality.
> 
> Internal emails and documents suggest the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007. Langhoff resigned on Tuesday.
> 
> The highly controversial activities were organised in London and focused on the Journal's European edition, which circulates in the EU, Russia, and Africa. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.

....

> The affair will add weight to the fears of shareholders in Murdoch's parent company, NewsCorp, that the business has become a 'rogue corporation', operating outside normal rules. Some shareholders have launched a legal action in the US, attacking the Murdoch family after the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and following lawsuits in which NewsCorp subsidiaries have been accused of hacking into competitors' computers and stealing their customers.



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Kim Holburn
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