Top 20 Newspapers

Drudge lists the Top 20 newspapers by paid weekday circulation. The report covers the last six months. I was curious to see that five of the papers increased their circulation. I thought newspapers were in a free-fall? I realize 15 of the newspapers dropped in circulation, and some of them drastically so (e.g., The San Francisco Chronicle), but if 1/4th of the country's biggest papers can increase circulation a little, surely that's a good indication that steps can be taken to save the newspapers.

Then again, if the coasts set the trends for the rest of the nation, it doesn't look good. The coastal newspapers--LA Times, SF Chronicle, Boston Globe--seem to have fared the worst.

This story (also linked through Drudge) says circulation is down 2.6% overall during the last six months, which is about the same as the previous six months.

So it's not a free-fall, but it doesn't look good for newspapers, either. Oh well, even though I was a paper boy, I've never been a big fan of newspapers. I call them "insta-messes." Nothing clutters and messes a house faster and better than a newspaper (if my wife leaves and I spend 15 seconds throwing away the stray newspapers lying around the house, she comes home and says, "Oh, thanks for cleaning up").

I enjoy reading newspapers, of course, but their grip over the nation's reading habits is terribly disproportionate to their actual worth. If they do indeed disappear, I'll miss them more for nostalgia than substance.