Last month, the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported the latest round of bad numbers for daily papers—including the harsh news for the Seattle P-I: Circulation is down 9.1%.

I finally got my hands on a copy of that report and there’s a piece of data that makes the P-I’s slide even more alarming. Not only did circulation drop 9.1%, but a category known as “other paid” increased a whopping 21.1%. “Other paid” is essentially bulk discount subscriptions to things like schools and retailers and employees. The average industry increase for “other paid” was in the 8% range—not the P-I’s 21.1%.

Here’s why “other paid” is significant: Since that number is factored into overall circulation numbers—bumping it up can be used to hide declining regular rate subscriptions. For example, when BusinessWeek’s media news blog reported on the latest numbers, they cautioned: “The three biggest newspapers—the national triumvirate of USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times—only fell 0.4%. [But] both USA Today and the New York Times significantly increased their use of seriously discounted subscriptions. (These are reported under the rubric of ‘other paid’ in the Audit Bureau report; the prototypical example of other paid circulation is copies of, say, USA Today purchased in bulk and delivered to hotel rooms.)”

That’s bad news for the P-I. If you actually strip out “other paid” from the P-I’s circulation #s, it goes from the dismal 9.1-percent drop to a 10.8-percent drop!

Over at the Seattle Times, they had a 6.7% drop in circulation (including an “other paid” jump of 8.4%). If you strip out “other paid” for the Seattle Times, its circulation actually dropped 8.2%.