Firstly the fact of newspapers' existence at all. Their death has long been predicted. Even just 10 years ago, doom-mongers said websites and rolling television news would mean the end of cumbersome, outdated and smudgy print.
Just as the bowler hats had disappeared from the City, so the newspapers tucked under arms would follow into oblivion, they said.
Since that prophesy, the threat has been compounded by blogs, search engines, mobile phones, PDAs and even electronic paper.
Although newspapers have so far defied the gloomy predictions, they are taking radical steps to respond to the competition. The Guardian is the third daily broadsheet to adopt a more compact size - and others may well follow.
Despite these changes, though, the format has not changed hugely since the first English language private newspaper, the Corante, was published in 1621 in London.
They use the same example I always use: the scene in Minority Report where a commuter reads an electronic newspaper whose headlines change dynamically. One of the chief advantages print has had over other media is its portability. But once small, mobile devices can access electronic content from anywhere (like, say, e-paper that can tap into ubiquitous WiFi hotspots), suddenly paper and print don't have that advantage anymore. Still, one never gets an error message while reading print, and connections to print media don't end abruptly (subscription department errors notwithstanding), so the only remaining advantage to print media may well be its rock-solid reliability. But for how long?
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