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These are the types of days newspaper people hate. We had some mechancial problems last night preventing us from getting the papers to the carriers until much later than normal. Because many of the carriers have other jobs, they aren't able to deliver the papers, which means we scramble.

And it means papers won't be delivered until mid-morning, which isn't what most people pay for.

The other reason we hate it is that it disrupts the newspaper habit. While you're eating your cereal, instead of reading the paper, you might watch the morning news. You might decide you like the idea of having an extra 20 minutes to get off to work.

On the other hand, I'm hoping that you miss us, knowing what happened out there, knowing who was born and who died, knowing all this stuff.

There are many different ways to measure the vitality of the Web site -- traffic, unique visitors, interaction, time spent, among others.

With the newspaper, measures are quirkier, more arbitrary and wildly inaccurate. As retailer John Wanamaker said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

So I use a variety of anecdotal measures: I watch what people read and don't read when I'm out and about; I note how long papers lay neglected on driveways; and I track e-mails, letters to the editor, phone calls, comments on Debatables.

I also watch my wife. In the world of categorizing the newspaper "consumer," there are readers, who approach the paper as if it were a book, and there are users, who go through the paper looking for information they can use to do something.

My wife is both. She reads the Sports section first, and I know it's a good section if I am finished with the front section before she's finished with Sports. If she moves to the features section too quickly, I know we've failed in her first course.

The other measure I use is the number of times a section comes to me transformed into a newsprint jigsaw puzzle. This morning, she clipped out three or four features in the Life section -- a couple recipes, an advice column and a household tips column. Information worth clipping, filing and using. Could she have gotten it online? Of course, but the point is that she didn't...and probably wouldn't have thought of looking for that specific recipe. It just came to her, sounded tasty and appeared simple to prepare.

Some days, in our household, disappointment is getting a complete, whole newspaper.

We had press problems this morning, and the papers were delivered late on many routes, including mine. I spent part of the morning on the phone, answering calls from friends politely inquiring where the heck their paper is. The message from most of them boiled down to this: How do you expect me to eat my breakfast and drink my coffee without the paper? It is what I do!

These aren't octogenarians, computerless and clueless. These are people in their 40's and 50's, successful, intelligent people. They have the newspaper habit and aren't willing to give it up, even though getting it digitally may be cheaper and deeper. They may well be the last generation of any size to include a printed newspaper in their media consumption, but there are still an awful lot of them and they're going to live many more years.

I am a proponent of digital journalism. As I watch how the people born in the 80's use media, I know digital is not just the future, it is now. As an industry, we have been slow to respond. Subsequently, some of the more provocative thinkers in journalism suggest that newspapers sell their presses and go digital. And/or that papers eliminate all wire copy -- the commodity news -- and focus everything on local.

In principal, I can see it, at some point. But I think of the people who called me and those who overwhelmed our customer service folks this morning. That is not what they want. And that's a lot of people.

Newspapers are struggling and we are partially to blame. But the challenge is in making the evolution from print to digital while still trying to serve the different audiences and meeting the demands of capitalism all within a recessionary market. I don't have that answer -- boy, would I be rich if I did. But it'll come.

I was failing miserably at explaining to a friend why we published this story about reading -- or, rather, about the growing number of people who don't read much of anything -- as our Sunday A1 centerpiece. It's an important story, I said:

The trend has profound implications for our future work force, for the ability of people to make informed choices about the future of the country. Those who read less are more likely to be unemployed and less likely to vote and participate in civic affairs, the NEA finds.

But it's also a soft story. No bombs raining or bullets flying. No government corruption and no Spitzer sex. So why did it deserve big front page play, he asked.

I've been thinking about that conversation this week. That it has more resonance here than call-girl sex, money under the table or bullets became clear to me as I listened to the speakers at One Guilford this afternoon.

Here's the fact: Nearly 40 percent of the incoming students at GTCC do not read at the 8th grade level. That's what one panelist, Dr. Kathryn Baker Smith, vice president for educational support services at GTCC, said.

Nearly 40 percent read at the elementary or middle school level? Breathtaking.

Time was, people read the newspaper, and while they may not have thought much about it, they were reading, thinking, analyzing, expanding their horizons -- all that stuff. But the point is that they were reading every day. Not bills of lading. Not receipts. Not menus. Not the crawl on SportsCenter. Reading stories.

Perhaps I'm adding two plus two and coming up with 17, but I wonder how the decline of newspaper reading and the growing inability of a generation to read are connected. No, I'm not proposing some newspapers-as-medicine prescription. I know that train has left the station for this generation. But it is yet another cultural milepost that has just zipped past in the rear-view mirror.

At how high does the percentage need to get at GTCC before we as a community become alarmed enough to do something?

From the Readership Institute last week: Celebrity news seldom pops up among the topics of local readership studies. The celebrity television shows are facing ratings issues, and the ratings for awards shows like the Oscars are a shadow of their former selves. While there is a flurry of questions from newspapers about celebrity news in newspapers, the celebrity magazines are in a death plunge.

From Women's Wear Daily today: Jennifer Lopez's twin babes helped people.com break records in terms of traffic to its Web site on Thursday, the day the issue hit newsstands. People.com hit an all-time high of four million daily unique visitors who viewed the first picture of babies Max and Emme online from the magazine's exclusive photo shoot with Lopez and husband Marc Anthony.

J-Lo's babies won't be on the front page of the paper or the Website; we agree with the Readership Institute that the daily newspaper (or its Website) isn't the place people looking for that sort of info go. Still, 4 million visitors provides a pretty good parachute from the death plunge. With Branjolina and Jessica pregnant, the future is bright!

Teenagers may not read newspapers so much, but they're still interested in them.

Yesterday, we held the interviews for our annual Scholastic Achievement program, in which we give college scholarships to outstanding high school seniors. One of the judges was Vickie Kilimanjaro, co-publisher of the Carolina Peacemaker.

We interviewed 12 students and gave each an opportunity to ask questions of the selection team. Four students did, and three of those asked Kilimanjaro about the experience of working for the paper. They seemed truly curious. (Of course, these are the public school system's best and brightest.)

It affirms Tim McGuire's thinking: There is a remarkable loyalty to the IDEA of newspapers despite the fact that many, if not most, of my students are not regular newspaper readers.

Ted Gup bemoans the disengagement of college students with current events in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries -- China, Cuba, India, and Japan -- not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. The question of when the Civil War was fought invited an array of responses -- half a dozen were off by a decade or more. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975.

He adds:

It is not easy to explain how we got into this sad state, or to separate symptoms from causes. Newspaper readership is in steep decline. My students simply do not read newspapers, online or otherwise, and many grew up in households that did not subscribe to a paper.

An oldtimer complaining about "these kids today?" I asked some journalism instructors who work here or used to work here for their observations.

Former managing editor Ned Cline: Sadly, based on my experiences in the classroom, today's students seldom if ever read newspapers. A few look a topics of interest on internet, but my classroom discussions indicate they do not follow local newspapers beyond what is required in class, even then begrudgingly and only enough to get by. Every week, I ask for news since last class and they seldom know beyond sports (males) or some rock star dying. And these are students with an interest in journalism (in theory). It is not a pleasant thought or much hope for future of newsrooms.

Editorial page editor Allen Johnson: I keep them honest with current events pop quizzes. I also require them to learn the names of local and state elected officials. Otherwise they are blissfully unaware of even the biggest national stories. However, once we get them engaged they seem to become more interested, and even thoughtful, in discussing the issues.

I believe them and sympathize with their frustration as teachers. But I'm struggling with the idea that this is something worth wringing my hands over. Or that it is a new phenomenon.

When I was in college in the early 70s, I read newspapers in the college library primarily to pass the time between classes and to procrastinate doing real work. I followed Watergate, but not the Middle East. I followed the Patty Hearst kidnapping and Jeffrey MacDonald case, but not the oil embargo or the SALT agreement.

So, really, tabloid crime, but not anything actually important. (Well, there was that Watergate caper. I guess that turned out to be important, but it was tabloid drama, too.) I can't imagine that I or any of my friends would have passed any of Allen's tests without studying. It wasn't until I began working for a newspaper that I tuned into the world beyond my own neighborhood of interests.

Fast forward to today. We don't hire many journalists straight out of college, but the ones we do either are tuned in, or more important, know how to get up to speed quickly. And that, I think, is the key.

Back in the day, if you wanted information, you went to the newspaper or weekly magazines, selected from one, two or three television stations, or buried yourself in back issues and Reader's Guides at the library. Now, information is available everywhere at anytime. There is no real need to constantly keep up, outside of personal interest, when you can catch up at a moment's notice. I have observed it in my own college-age children.

I think the problem is ours, not theirs. The sooner we understand the "news will find me" generation, the better.