Federal prosecutors in New York have issued a subpoena to the New York Times, the city's biggest daily newspaper, in an investigation of how newspapers measure circulation figures for advertisers.
New York Times Co. said in a statement Wednesday its flagship newspaper was asked for documents by the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn on Tuesday but that it was not the focus of the federal probe.
The New York Post and New York Daily News tabloids have also received subpoenas, following probes by the U.S. Attorney's office of misstated circulation at Long Island, New York-based Newsday.
"We are cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's office, which has informed us that The Times is not a focus of the investigation," Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said.
Mathis declined to comment on the specifics of the document request. She said the company's reporting of circulation conforms to the rules of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and applicable accounting standards.
The Post, a unit of media conglomerate News Corp., and the Daily News both said earlier this week they were cooperating with the probe.
The Daily News had an average daily circulation of 715,052 for the six months ended Sept. 30, with the Post at 686,207, according to data that the papers reported to the ABC, which monitors circulation.
The Times is the largest daily paper in New York, with an average weekday circulation of 1,121,057 for the six months ended Sept. 30, although the Wall Street Journal, published Monday through Friday by Dow Jones & Co. Inc. has a larger circulation during the week with an average of 2,106,774 copies sold.
A Dow Jones spokeswoman said the paper had not received a subpoena from the U.S. attorney's office.
The widening investigation by U.S. prosecutors in New York follows a circulation scandal at Tribune Co.'s Newsday and Spanish-language Hoy as well as Hollinger International Inc.'s Chicago Sun-Times and Belo Corp.'s Dallas Morning News.
The scandals angered advertisers, whose rates are closely linked to circulation levels. Tribune, Hollinger and Belo have set aside millions of dollars to refund advertisers who paid for ads based on inflated readership statistics.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has asked several newspaper chains, including N.Y. Times Co., for information on their circulation reporting as part of a general review of practices throughout the industry.
