Arizona Republic Daily Circulation Falls 5.7 Percent; Paper Fails to Report Figure in Circulation Article

A story today in the Arizona Republic touts the fact that the paper's Sunday circulation rose a tiny .2 percent, but leaves out a significant drop in daily circulation: Sunday circulation for The Arizona Republic increased slightly for the most recent six-month period, helping the newspaper join the ranks of...

By Ray Stern

April 28, 2009

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A story today in the Arizona Republic touts the fact that the paper's Sunday circulation rose a tiny .2 percent, but leaves out a significant drop in daily circulation:

Sunday circulation for The Arizona Republic increased slightly for the most recent six-month period, helping the newspaper join the ranks of top 10 Sunday newspapers for the first time.

Average circulation on Sundays for The Republic rose by 1,039 copies to 516,562 for the September 2008-March 2009 period, as reported in the March Publisher's Statement, part of the Audit Bureau of Circulations' semiannual Fas-Fax accounting of newspaper circulation. ...

The Republic also placed No. 10 with weekday circulation of 389,701.

The state's largest newspaper forces its readers to turn to Editor and Publisher, or their local blogger, for the real story:

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC -- 389,701 -- (-5.72%)

John Zidich, president and publisher of Republic Media, explains to his newspaper's reporter that the company had been focusing intently on making the Sunday edition better.

Zidich must mean that articles in Sunday's paper contain three-quarters of the relevant facts, instead of only half.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.