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The crucible of print

Britain’s embattled newspapers are leading the world in innovation

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BY MOST conventional measures, Britain's newspapers look doomed. Young readers are abandoning them for the internet and television. The Daily Express and the Daily Mirror, both tabloids, have shed about two-thirds of their circulation since the mid-1980s. Yet Evgeny Lebedev, co-owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard, is optimistic. “People are hailing the death of newspapers,” he says. “But if you go into the Tube, you'll see almost everybody is reading one.”

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "The crucible of print"

The battle ahead

From the January 8th 2011 edition

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