By: E&P Staff Louis Sito, the fast rising Tribune Co. executive at the center of the Newsday and Hoy circ scandals, had mysteriously fired from the Chicago Sun-Times several years before joining Newsday.
According to a story in Newsday that details his rise and fall, Sito was working as vice president and general manager of the Sun-Times in March 1984 and was axed 14 months later. Many former Sun-Times executives told Newsday that his "firing was surrounded in secrecy."
Jim Engle, who was vice president of circulation at the Sun-Times during Sito's tenure, said in the article that he thought that Sito was unethical. "'He's the kind of guy that always went out and fetched things and got things done, and not always the most ethical things, OK?'" Engle said to Newsday reporters.
Sito took an "early retirement" from Newsday this summer after revelations that an elaborate circulation scandal occurred at Newsday and Hoy. Currently, Sito is under government investigation for fraud, though neither the government nor Tribune has publicly implicated him.
Sito was also allegedly involved in paying distributors more than $1 million in kickbacks.
The Chicago Sun-Times also disclosed last year that it had misstated its circulation.
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