Jim Romenesko‘s media news Web site has long since turned into a cascade of bad news about the newspaper business – contributing to low morale in many a newsroom. So it’s almost newsworthy that the site has linked to an article that says newspaper circulation is up.

Globally, that is. Sacramento Bee public editor Armando Acuña writes:

“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.

And so it is good to read in the association’s study that newspaper circulation is rising or stable in three-quarters of the world’s countries. What the report doesn’t answer is whether we are ahead of the curve in the U.S. (and parts of western Europe) because of technological advantage – or if this is another example of how we are falling behind. Or perhaps both.