Newspapers are thriving - yes they are; no they're not ...

NEWSPAPERS ARE THRIVING, BUT DON’T TELL ANYONE
TODAY Weekend • June 14, 2008

AS I read 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 there 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”. Professional commentators are the same. 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 the few hundred thousand other 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. So, too, is this newspaper.

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 they’re growing. More papers are sold every day in tiny Japan than in the whole of the United States. Ninety-nine million papers are printed in India each day, and 107 million in China, both record highs.

Asians spend an unusually long time with their papers. The typical Chinese reader spends an average 48 minutes with each one, surveys show. Given that many readers spend just a few minutes glancing at the headlines while commuting, this means the others spend 20 hours with each paper, which would necessitate eating, bathing, and going to bed with them (we at this newspaper are really touched by this. We didn’t know you cared).

Why haven’t Asians abandoned newspapers for computers? Well, you can’t wrap your lunch in a laptop, for a start. Well, actually, you probably could, but it would be pretty messy. Second, you can’t hang your computer on a nail in the toilet when you’ve finished with it. Well, again, I suppose you could if you were desperate and insane. And third, the single most important thing a newspaper provides doesn’t work on a computer screen. I’m talking about those long, happy hours scribbling in the margins of a scrunched-up paper doing the crossword or Sudoku. Experienced newspapermen like me have no pretensions about what is really important to readers. If we misspell the President’s name or print “billion” instead of “million”, very few notice. But if we print the wrong crossword grid, thousands of people riot outside our offices, and the production editor has to commit ritual suicide in the nearest public stadium.

Okay, that’s the end of this column and you can now hang me in the toilet.

The writer is a syndicated columnist with a website at www.vittachi.com.