What’s this fresh catastrophe at the Sun-Times?
So now what?
When the ABC audits a newspaper, it’s looking for evidence that the paper exaggerated its circulation. But Hollinger’s already admitted to doing that. In this case, the ABC’s duty is to consider the possibility that it’s the admission that’s exaggerated.
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I don’t think anyone inside the ABC believes for a second that’s the case. But the situation is so strange already, why not imagine it even stranger? The list of usual suspects at the Sun-Times is two names long: Conrad Black and David Radler. Black was never around, but during the years when circulation figures were allegedly manipulated Radler was both the Sun-Times’s publisher and the president of Hollinger International. Late last year Radler quit those jobs under fire. Now he and Black are being sued by Hollinger’s board for ripping off the company to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. A fraud accusation is one more stick to beat them with–which is why the ABC needs to keep an open mind about ulterior motives.
Had he read Roger Ebert’s piece in the Sunday paper? Ebert wrote, “Who would have thought such a penny-pincher might possibly be pinching millions for his own pockets?”
Shouldn’t the ABC have detected fraud if it went on for years?
This sounds like a bigger scandal than the Sun-Times’s!
