A smoking gun?

A late notice on this one, since the Peg blog has only been running since the weekend:

Eric Celeste has the best (only?) investigative reporting on the DMN circulation "overstatement." In this week's Dallas Observer, he reveals:

After he [a distribution contractor] left, Johnson's wife made one last effort to alert the paper to circulation wrongdoing. She e-mailed a member of the Belo board and told him about the circulation scandal. They traded e-mails as he asked for more details. In 2001, the ABC conducted a major surprise audit of the paper, Johnson says his friends told him. "I told my wife, 'Looks like someone listened.'

Good stuff. I don't know why they're burying it in the "Buzz" column, though.