Rupert Murdoch`s News Corporation is making headlines again. Following the News of the World phone-hacking story in July, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal has faced allegations of a so-called ‘circulation scam’, aimed at misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal`s true circulation. Mr. Andrew Langhoff, the managing director of Dow Jones&Co. in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the Journal`s parent company, stepped down shortly after the scandal over the paper`s circulation broke out.

The Guardian says that in 2008 the Wall Street Journal Europe invented a discount scheme, offering European companies to buy copies of WSJ Europe at a fraction of their cover price. As part of the scheme, the firms` names were published in a special panel in the paper. The scheme allowed the publisher to sell 30,000 copies every day in 2010 alone, with the official circulation data at the time said to be 75,000 copies. The scheme was disclosed when The Guardian got access to Mr. Langhoff`s correspondence with one of the WSJ`s partners in Europe. The VoR asked journalist Pyotr Fadeev to comment on the issue:

"Traditional non-electronic media have always been involved in this kind of circulation schemes. In the age of the Internet they have no other choice. The Guardian is not an exception here."

Such circulation schemes first became known in the 1990s, when the world saw a rise in electronic media. In 1999 Hong Kong`s Standart was accused of fraud in order to boost circulation claims (they made 14 million extra copies in two years). Another scandal broke out when it was disclosed that the US-based Tribune made 100,000 extra copies within four years. The media industry was certainly facing a crisis. But nobody could even imagine this to happen to one of the world`s most respected media outlets, says journalist Igor Yakovenko:

"This is a real blow to the WSJ`s image. For years, it has remained an example of high quality journalism, their profit traditionally relying on their reputation. Now, I think, they will lose both readers and advertisers. The WSJ is now facing huge losses, though I do not think this will lead to its closure. Those were mistaken who believed that nothing would change after the WSJ was taken over by Murdoch`s News Corp."

Murdoch bought Dow Jones&Co in 2007. It seemed that the WSJ was in no way affected by the phone-hacking scandal in the News of the World. However, it has become clear by now that the publishers were ready to do everything possible to make their business more profitable, a senior reporter for The Independent, Andy McSmith said in an interview with the VoR…

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The Guardian says that Murdoch`s long-time aide Les Hinton was aware of the scheme but preferred to keep silent about the information he had received from one of the employees. The WSJ has rejected all the allegations, describing the Guardian report as ‘replete with untruths and malign interpretations’. However, Andrew Langhoff has already stepped down, while the fate of Rupert Murdoch is likely to be decided during News Corporation's annual shareholder meeting in Los Angeles on October 21.