The troubled media group Hollinger International said last night that its Chicago Sun-Times newspaper had misstated circulation figures for the 'past several years' and was the subject of an internal investigation.
A Hollinger spokesman said the probe was launched in May, the same month that the group decided to take the title off the auction block.
The company provided scant details of the misreporting, saying only that the title had provided inflated figures to the US Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) for several years.
In late 2003, the tabloid gave its daily circulation figures as just under half a million copies a day, according to a spokesman. The company expects to publish the findings of its internal inquiry at the end of July.
The news comes at a sensitive time for the troubled media group, as it tries to sell off its British titles - the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, and The Spectator.
In its statement, the company sought to reassure prospective buyers, saying it had reviewed circulation reporting practices at the Telegraph titles and given them a clean bill of health.
The discovery of inflated circulation figures is just the latest problem for the Chicago-based media group, after the departure in late 2003 of its high-flying chief executive Conrad Black and several of his closest aides over the issue of unauthorised payments.
