U-T San Diego may have offered bargain ad deals to candidates they endorsed.

Tom Shephard, a political consultant for Bob Filner, a Democrat running for mayor of San Diego, noticed a lot of full page newspaper ads attacking his client; ads that he was quoted $8,000 for.

“Amita Sharma and Ryann Growchowski, with inewsource and KPBS, audited ads in the San Diego Union-Tribune every day between Labor Day and Election Day 2012 and compared the list with campaign finance records. The results show varied payments for ads, indicating the U-T may have offered bargains to the anti-Filner campaign and to other candidates and issues the newspaper endorsed.”

Update: California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) has said that “an investigation has been opened on this matter,” regarding UT San Diego’s political ad rates during the 2012 election season.