MEDIA ENRON UPDATE:

Just how deep is the newspaper circulation scandal of 2004? Combined with other substantial circulation losses, how damaging will it be to the bread and butter of advertising revenues for 2004, for 2005 and by extension in years to come? Is it yet another sign of the gradual but inexorable decline of the industry and the medium in which many of us practice journalism? . . .

Lately the party line in the industry is that the worst of the scandal part is behind us. Industry leaders say the tally of recent losses, while admittedly bad, is not quite as bad as some had predicted. Business is getting back to normal, they say.

Not so fast, we are here to tell you. We stumbled serendipitously on a set of facts suggesting that the impact to date is actually 50 percent worse than we and others who track the industry had thought.

If it were any other industry, the press would be all over this story. I wonder if there will be prosecutions.

UPDATE: A reader points out that Newsday deserves credit for covering this scandal aggressively in a way that other media, even those organs not involved in the scandal, haven’t.