It requires a big rise in circulation to offset that drop in ad revenue, and few popular broadsheet papers are likely to get the same boost as the Independent, which has a relatively small and young readership.

ECONOMIST: Everywhere, broadsheets are shrinking

French papers warn of a crisis in the conservative opposition Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) after a "grotesque" leadership contest failed to produce a clear winner amid claims of vote-rigging.

BBC: French papers unimpressed by UMP leadership "chaos"

Thanks to the early translation into Persian of a popular blogging tool (and crowds of journalists who lacked an outlet after their papers were shut down), Iran had tens of thousands of blogs by 2009.

ECONOMIST: The evolving blogosphere

Some of the suspicions were well founded: Charity Ngilu, one of the more popular of the 12 candidates who were challenging Mr Moi for the presidency, recovered thousands of unmarked ballot papers in the commission's offices in her eastern constituency although several polling stations in the area had complained bitterly of a shortage.

ECONOMIST: Kenya

Many scientists, physicists in particular, now upload drafts of their papers into public archives paid for by networks of universities for the general good. (The most popular is known as arXiv, the middle letter being a Greek chi.) Here, manuscripts are subject to a ruthless process of open peer review, rather than the secret sort traditional publishers employ.

ECONOMIST: Academic journals face a radical shake-up