O’Reilly - also Independent News & Media CEO - protested that newspaper circulation grew 1.3 percent in 2008 to 540 million copies. But this is a statistical sleight of hand - aggregate newspaper circs may be up, but that’s thanks to increases in the developing world (Africa up 6.9 percent, Asia up 2.9 percent, South America 1.8 percent). In North America, circs were down 3.7 percent and in Europe 1.8 percent. Anyone who sees the financial performance of any publishers of size in those regions knows the industry is in trouble - even WAN acknowledges ad revenue was down five percent in 2008.

That O’Reilly hasn’t noticed the problems is perplexing - his own INM is only afloat because it found emergency capital and a repayment deadline extension this month, and is trying to find assets to sell for €100 million.

But still O’Reilly persists: “If we are a declining industry, the definition of ‘declining’ is a strange one ... Why is it, that something as sophisticated as media consumption always get relegated to an oversimplified spat between print and online? Why must it always be a case of either or? Is it just possible that the consumer is capable of multi-tasking; is capable of consuming a multitude of media and that it need not necessarily be just online?” Release.