NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, July 30, 2004

Story Continues Below

  John Cruickshank, publisher of the Sun-Times, said Thursday that it was too early to determine how much the company would owe advertisers. Advertising rates are commonly set according to a newspaper's circulation.

Hollinger International Inc., which owns the Sun-Times, said an audit committee has retained an independent accounting firm to "assist in its review" and expects to announce its findings "within the next few weeks."

Hollinger International, which also owns The Jerusalem Post, announced the circulation discrepancy June 15. It said the overstatement was discovered when a new leadership team took over there after Conrad Black stepped down as CEO of Hollinger International in November. It did not say how much of the Sun-Times' circulation was overstated.

The executives in charge of circulation for the Sun-Times left their jobs two weeks after the announcement.

Advertisers filed two lawsuits against the Sun-Times and Hollinger International in response.

Daily newsstand sales, or single-copy sales, account for about 65 percent of the paper's Monday-through-Friday circulation, which stood at 481,798, according to the paper's latest filing with Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Another Chicago newspaper company also announced in June that it overstated circulation numbers. Tribune Co. said circulation figures had been inflated at Newsday, a New York tabloid, and at Hoy, the Spanish-language daily launched by Newsday and owned by Tribune.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Editor's note: