Executives ignored questions about WSJ Europe circulation

Edmund Lee of Bloomberg News writes that News Corp. executives were given information about questionable tactics raising the Wall Street Journal Europe’s circulation a year before the publisher resigned, but ignored it.

Lee writes, “Les Hinton, the former chief executive officer at the News Corp. unit that publishes the Wall Street Journal Europe, was contacted with details of the payment practice in November 2010, according to former circulation manager Gert Van Mol and e-mails he provided to Bloomberg News. Todd Larsen, president of the Dow Jones & Co. unit, was also notified.

“Van Mol said in the correspondence that a Dow Jones business partner was being compensated at the same time that partner was buying thousands of copies of the Wall Street Journal Europe, effectively boosting the publication’s circulation. Andrew Langhoff, the newspaper’s publisher who stepped down last week, had approved the payments, the circulation manager said in the e-mails.

“‘It was a non-ethical practice,’ Van Mol said in an interview. ‘I didn’t want to be part of it, so I contacted Hinton and Larsen.’

“Bethany Sherman, a Dow Jones spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether Hinton and Larsen had been alerted to the payments last year. She said Langhoff, 49, resigned because of the perception the newspaper’s agreement with the Executive Learning Partnership could have compromised editorial integrity.”

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