True interactive television still seems a distant dream and the Internet has not replaced newsprint as an accompaniment to morning coffee. In fact, 1997 and 1998 have proven that the average news-hungry reader still goes to his front doorstep or comer store to find out about the world. "Ever since the arrival of television, we’ve been told that newspapers will be dead next month. And it’s never happened," said Roger Bird, associate journalism professor at Carleton University and author of "The End of News". Regular circulation, low newsprint prices and increasing advertising revenues, together with productivity improvements, all combined to deliver a banner year in terms of profits for Canadian newspaper publishers. "Overall I think there is pretty strong evidence, certainly in the past year the industry is healthy and lively," declared Don Babick, president and chief operating officer of Southam Inc.