For years, the mass media have been busy writing the obituary of newspapers and throwing around theories of who killed print.
It was the bloggers in the kitchen with the candlestick.
No, it was Craigslist in the billiards room with the noose of free classifieds, stealing the lifeblood of newspapers.
If you read all this coverage, it'd be easy to think that the smart thing for anyone in public relations is to stop spending so much time on boring old newspapers, a relic of the 18th century. As relevant as buggy whips.
Forget them. Hang out with bloggers and tweeters. Work up a killer Facebook page.
You'd be wrong.
Because newspapers aren't dying.
Oh, big papers have been in trouble in America, but it's not because people don't read anymore. Cities with two newspapers found out life was hard when Craigslist ate their lunch and they started giving away content for free on the internet, thinking that online ads would make up for lost circulation.
Giant newspaper chains got into a giant financial mess by going into deep debt to buy up other newspapers.
But mid-sized papers and small-town papers are doing OK, and newspapers, though wounded, are far from dead.
In fact, newspapers around the world are growing.
If you go by real numbers instead of trend stories and anecdotes, newspapers are still strong.
- There are 12,477 newspapers as of 2009, an increase of 1.7 percent over 2008, according to the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.
- Daily circulation fell 0.8 percent in 2009, because of the recession, but readership is actually up 5.7 percent over the last five years.
- Newspaper readers make up 37 percent of the world population, with 25 percent reading a daily paper and another 12 percent picking up non-dailies.
Do you want to reach 37 percent of the population? I do.
Don't fall for all the doom and gloom about newspapers. They're alive and kicking, and an essential part of any nutritious media diet.