Newspapers. Big numbers, big problems. Unfortunately some of the specific problems related to the newspaper business reflect badly on print as a whole. The world outside of the industry tends to automatically thinks of newspapers and magazines when they think about a generic umbrella of ‘print’, so it’s little wonder so many people think ‘print’ is dying when there’s so much red ink in trad newspaper land. This week’s events at Newsfax are the latest bad news day for the sector, hot on the heels of news that Johnston Press is closing its Sunderland plant. Listening to Richard Bacon interview Andrew Marr on the radio the other day, Marr opined (when not being quizzed on the cringe-inducing details of being photographed in a clinch with a woman who was not his wife...) about national newspapers and said he thought it likely that one national would disappear in the not-too-distant future. Earlier this week, for unrelated reasons, I found myself looking at Guardian Media Group’s accounts (operating loss: £47.8m, bottom-line loss £75.6m). The group accepts its current situation is unsustainable, yet insists on hiking the price of its printed papers while giving away all its content online for free via its “uniquely open” or, to my mind “uniquely bonkers” strategy. This makes for something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, non? I’m sure changes are afoot. They intend to cut the cost base by at least £25m. But when it comes to physical papers The Guardian is in a tricky position due to adopting the Berliner format, which obviously makes any potential move to a contract print partner difficult without moving presses (expensive)  or changing format (expensive + loss of face). Hilariously a columnist at the paper recently suggested a £2/month tax on broadband users to be distributed to newspapers based on online readership, to fund 'proper' journalism. Whaaaat? What is wrong with this picture?? Clearly he’s been nibbling from the wrong side of the mushroom. Meanwhile, the FT, which spent squillions on its own swanky print plant way back when only to subsequently decide against it, now finds itself running a printing plant again, due to the mission-critical requirement to have its London copies on City desks at dawn. Newspapers are generating plenty of column inches of their own, and it’s not over by a long way yet.