Sometimes it's good to get out of the bunker and take a look around at the big picture.

Here in the United States, news about the financial swamp that newspapers find themselves mired in dominates industry discussions – and more than a few conversations with readers.

While the repercussions of the advertising downturn – layoffs, buyouts, smaller news holes, fewer pages, etc. – continue to reverberate across the land with no end yet in sight, it's not necessarily the same everywhere.

As they say, think globally.

Last month, the World Association of Newspapers, which represents 18,000 papers across the globe, released its little-noticed annual report at its meeting in Goteborg, Sweden.

Its conclusion, which sounds like heresy around these parts, is that "newspapers are a growth business," with worldwide circulation growing by almost 3 percent last year, while at the same time significantly expanding their online audience.

And, as important, advertising revenue at paid dailies was up too, at 1 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent over the last five years.

Even in western Europe, where circulation is also dropping, advertising money was nonetheless up 2 percent last year.

The jalapeño in the punch bowl, of course, is those underperforming dailies in the United States, where circulation and ad revenue continue to head south faster than swallows in winter.

"Newspaper circulation has been rising or stable in three-quarters of the world's countries over the past five years and in nearly 80 percent of countries in the past year," said the association's top official, Timothy Balding, in the report.

"And even in places where paid-for circulation is declining, notably the United States and some countries in western Europe, newspapers continue to extend their reach through a wide variety of free and niche publications and through their rapidly developing multi-media platforms."

So maybe it's just raining here, or maybe the storm hasn't reached across the oceans yet, or maybe things really are different over there.

The report did find some positive developments in the United States:

"A study in the U.S. shows that newspaper web site users also read the print edition: 81 percent of online newspaper readers also read a printed newspaper at least once a week. Half say they spend the same time as they did previously with newspaper content, while 35 percent say they spend more time overall with newspaper content."

And along with American newspaper audiences growing last year by 8 percent when combining their print and Internet readers, the global growth of Internet advertising revenues clearly is centered here in the United States, which is also a positive for newspapers, if enough of the Web dollars can be captured.

"Internet advertising revenues – not just newspapers online, but all Internet advertising – was up 32.45 percent over one year and 200 percent over five years," the report said.

"Most of the revenue is generated in the United States, western Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region: North American Internet advertising revenue is 20 times greater than the combined revenue generated in central and eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa."

And even within regions, the distribution of Internet advertising revenue is "striking," the report said, with Britain (40 percent ) and Germany (23 percent) dominating Europe, for example.

"If the U.S. and European markets are combined, the U.S. would have a 62 percent share, followed by the United Kingdom with 15 percent and Germany with 8 percent."

Not surprisingly, newspaper online revenues are expected to more than double in the next five years, said the report.

But even then, the question is, will it be enough fast enough, with online advertising accounting for less than 15 percent of total newspaper advertising by 2011, according to the report.

That means that globally as well as right here in River City, the vast bulk of advertising revenue will continue to be generated for several more years by the dead tree version of newspapers.

Eventually, that also translates into what kind of product you, the reader, will end up with.

Is it one with enough gas in the tank to take long, ambitious trips or one starving for fuel and merely sputtering along? That's the real significance of the numbers, here and everywhere else.

For what it's worth, here are a few interesting nuggets from the report, which has been published annually since 1986 and includes information on all countries and territories where newspapers are published – 232 in all.

• Seventy-four of the world's 100 biggest dailies are published in Asia. China, Japan and India account for 62 of them.

• Even though circulation is down in Japan, the Japanese remain the world's greatest newspaper buyers, with 624 daily sales per 1,000 adults. Following them are Norway with 580 per 1,000, Finland with 503, and Sweden and Singapore with 449.

• The Turks like spending time with their newspapers, with a world-leading average of 74 minutes per day. They are followed by the Belgians at 54 minutes, and the Finns and the Chinese at 48.

• Newspaper circulation increased by 11 percent in India last year and by 36 percent in the last five years.

• In the past five years, circulation increased by 481 percent in Ukraine, 279 percent in Moldova, 181 percent in Kazakhstan and 94 percent in Malaysia.

The Public Editor deals with complaints and concerns about The Sacramento Bee's content. His opinions are his own. You can contact the Public Editor by mail at P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852; or by calling him directly at (916) 321-1250.