James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » For me, one of lifeâÂÂs simplest and greatest pleasures is wandering down to the newsagent on a Sunday morning, scooping up a rainforestâÂÂs worth of newspapers and then working my way through them over the next couple of hours with the help of a large cup of coffee and a couple of croissants â or at least it was, until I had kidsâÂÅ
Now that weekend lie-ins last until about 7am, this sort of self-indulgence is just a distant memory â but in another decade or so, when I hope to get my Sunday mornings back, thereâÂÂs a growing likelihood that my trips to the newsagent might well be obsolete.
Newspaper circulation figures have been steadily falling over the last few years, and the latest ABC statistics, which measure readerships month-by-month and year-on-year, show that thereâÂÂs no sign of this trend abating.
Of the 22 national daily and Sunday newspapers listed, only the Financial Times and (thanks to a recent relaunch) the Independent on Sunday have recorded any level of year-on-year growth at all, with negative changes of more than ten per cent afflicting many of their rival publications.
Even the super soaraway Sun, BritainâÂÂs most popular newspaper and the proud possessor of a circulation of over 4,000,000 just a short time ago, is now struggling to keep it above the three million mark.
With more and more people getting their news from an ever-growing variety of online and electronic sources, and the emergence of new technologies like portable, foldable screens to which your chosen news resource can be beamed, are we witnessing the terminal decline of the physical newspaper?
Might even the name of NewcastleâÂÂs most audibly-celebrated inhabitant â Mr Ronnie Gill - one day no longer echo round the city centre streets, as all his readers turn to their screens for their daily digital edition?
Call me old fashioned, but thereâÂÂs still something comforting about reading a publication that youâÂÂre physically holding.
Even the smell of the newsprint and the mess it leaves on your fingers have a sentimental value - and even though weâÂÂre in an electronic age and I get an awful lot of my own news from online sources, I hope thereâÂÂll always be a place in the media mix for the good old daily rag.
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