Like WSJ Europe, Some US Papers Rely on Deeply-Discounted Circulation

The Wall Street Journal Europe’s dealings with a Dutch consulting firm to prop up circulation, exposed this week and resulting in the departure of its publisher, raises an obvious question: How much of this sort of thing goes on at financially-pressed U.S. newspapers?

I don’t know of any U.S. title that, like the Journal’s European edition, has promised, by contract, news coverage as part of a deal with a business partner. Nor have I known of a paper that maintains more than 80 percent of its circulation total with freebies, as the Wall Street Journal Europe has been doing.