One of the big reasons Old Media hates, absolutely hates, GW Bush is the Federal investigation of some Old Media favorite corporations - Time Warner, for example, as well as Enron and WorldCom, all highflyers during the Clinton years of misstated earnings and collusion with their auditing firms, as well as union investments in dubious corporations. Old Media has another reason to grit their teeth over a Federal investigation of their newspaper circulation figures as well.
On Sunday, Newsday (Chicago Tribune-owned, acquired when they bought the Los Angeles Times) fired their "seventh circulation employee." These are the people who demand - I SAY DEMAND - accountability from everyone else, with the exception of any Liberal, leftwing, or Liberal-leftwing-supporting group, company, or individual. And they have cheated their advertisers for years as well as deceiving the public on their success.
Hopefully, the Bush administration will also call for a complete investigation into Neilsen ratings for television.
Circulation fraud stories, here and here.
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Despite the fact that there are circulation auditing companies, circulation is still largely an honor system. The auditing companies don't put very much effort into verifying the circs of publications. This has the potential to be a huge scandal, only the general public doesn't really care. Trade publishing advertisers have become savvy enough to demand results from advertising, because where there are results, there is quality circ.
Might even be worse than neglect. The ABC auditing site is still carrying the pre-subscriber fraud figures for the newspapers even when the newspapers have acknowledged the deceit. That sounds remarkably like collusion to me. Here's hoping the advertiser lawsuits opens a can of worms as they demand accountability.
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