Newspapers are not dying -- in fact, North American papers have seen a steady, if small, circulation increase over the last five years, according to the World Association of Newspapers (no irony in the fact that this report about the robust nature of the business comes from a group whose acronym is WAN).

From WAN's press release:

Timothy Balding, CEO of the Paris-based WAN, says "What we are seeing completely contradicts the conventional wisdom that newspapers are in terminal decline.... The fashion of predicting the death of newspapers should be exposed for... nothing more than a fashion, based on common assumptions that are belied by the facts."

Balding? WAN? Did Pynchon write this press release? We're not sure what to make of this report, but feel free to read it here.