The Guardian Newspaper has found evidence that the Wall Street Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal’s true circulation. The revelation led to the resignation of Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones and Co, bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in July 2007.
The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper’s management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality.
