On the future of newspapers and journalism...

...and therefore of some print design.

The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, has a thoughtful contribution here, with a transcript of a speech he gave on this topic.

The challenges facing Japanese papers are given a round-up here (in a translation from a Nihon Shinbun Kyokai article, a group which represents Japanese newspapers).

(A decline of 1 million last year as mentioned in the article above nevertheless represents "only" a drop from 51.5 million to 50.3 million. Japan's sales of newspapers are very high: according to World Press Trends quoted in this article from the FCCJ's in-house magazine, in 2007, 624 out of 1,000 people bought a paper daily in Japan.)