This is an article from a friend in Hong Kong.
He is happy to have people pass it on and on and on.
Here is the link to the whole article: http://mrjam.typepad.com/diary/2008/06/newspapers-are.html
And here is a teaser:
Newspapers are thriving, but don’t tell anyone
As I peruse yet another magazine article celebrating the arrival of the digital age and mourning the loss of the old-fashioned print media, an important thought strikes me: I wonder what’s for dinner?
Reading such articles make my mind wander to more earth-shaking subjects such as my dinner for several reasons. First, because they are so many of them; second, because they are all wrong; and third, because I am on a diet (I have to get in shape for an appointment with my tailor).
You wouldn’t believe how widespread the digital fallacy is. When I tell people I write for newspapers, they shake their heads and talk sadly of “sunset industries”. Journalism.org says printed publications “are increasingly seen as anachronisms in this new media landscape”. Professors talk about the “terminal decline” of the traditional newspaper.
Anyway, I shall tell you a secret that is STRICTLY LIMITED to you, me, and other few hundred thousand people who read this column.
None of it is true. Newspaper circulations are up. Readership is up. Advertising is up. Revenue is up. The top Asian papers have been growing steadily for years and are hitting new records every year, including this one.
But this is hush-hush. We are not telling the Big Name International News Commentators about this. Why?
Because they think the world consists of three places (North America, Western Europe and Australia) and it suits us to let them continue to think this. In those three places, newspapers have fallen out of fashion.
But in Asia, the opposite is true. Almost all the world’s top papers are now in Asia (74 out of the top 100) and are growing. More papers are sold every day in tiny Japan than in the whole of the United States. Ninety-nine million papers are day are printed in India, and 107 million in China, both record highs.