The numbers game

As more details emerge from the circulation fraud alleged at the Chicago Tribune's Spanish-language Hoy, it begins to sound alarmingly like gangsters at work.

A longtime employee of Newsday's transportation department said drivers had been forced to take Hoys to newsstands and dump them there. He said drivers felt bad pushing Hoys on dealers, and sometimes dropped them off before the business opened so they would not have to confront the owners.

A former circulation department employee, who asked not to be identified, said, 'They would require stores, if they were carrying Newsday, they had to have copies of Hoy whether they wanted it or not even if ... there wasn't a Spanish-speaking person within 40 miles. . . .

Check out the graphic to the right "examining the numbers" to see how deeply discounted newspaper sales are counted in circulation figures. These are the people who want you to defer to their opinions and trust em for your views on the world.

UPDATE: First reported by the Long Island Press. Read their story here.