Among all of Mark Twain’s memorable lines, perhaps none is better remembered than his disclaimer, “Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

That’s sort of how I feel as your hometown newspaper publisher. Talk of the newspaper industry’s imminent demise are off base and overstated, to put it mildly.

Your local newspaper, The Journal, is doing just fine, thank you. We’re not having our best year ever, but we’re doing OK — better than most businesses, I suspect. Circulation is up over 2008, and 2008 was up compared to 2007. Advertising is starting to increase a bit as we remain the dominant source for information about where to buy local goods and services. And, on the news side, the need for what we do as an objective reporter of local events has never been greater.

If you are shaking your head in confusion, that’s understandable. There has been a lot of publicity about the failures of a relatively small number of papers in large markets, and the struggles of others. The reason you know is that we have reported the news about ourselves.

What the newspaper industry has not been very good at — not recently or ever, for that matter — is tooting its own horn. The facts are papers in the community daily and weekly categories continue to do pretty well in 2009, even in the midst of America’s worst economic slowdown since the 1930s.

About 80 percent of U.S. newspapers fall into the community category, that being total readership of 35,000 or less. There are about 8,000 such community newspapers serving towns across America, with better than 86 million regular readers. The Journal is one of those 8,000 newspapers. We contribute a readership of almost 27,000 to the total of 86 million.

Strong local newspapers have long been recognized as vital components to the health of a community. As such, the results recently released by the National Newspaper Association (NNA) from the fourth year of an ongoing study of newspaper readership can be categorized as good news. Among the NNA’s newspaper reader findings are the following:

• A whopping 81 percent of the people surveyed said they read a local newspaper every week.

• Of that number, some 73 percent said they read most or all of their local paper — news and advertising.

• About 75 percent said they read local news often to very often in the newspaper, but only half do so online. However, of those who do go online for news, about 63 percent did so at the local newspaper’s Web site.

• Close to half the readers of local newspapers said there are days they read the paper more for ad information than news information.

• People are more than four times likely to find out local information from their newspaper than the closest other sources, TV and word of mouth, and 10 times more likely in print than from the Internet.

• By percentages ranging from 70-80 percent, consumers said they prefer to look at ads in newspapers rather than on television and the Internet. Another almost 70 percent said they look at advertising inserts to help make buying decisions.

Surprised? I’ll bet a lot of you are.

Readership habits for The Journal roughly mirror the NNA findings. The fact that circulation of this newspaper is increasing when joblessness is rising and consumers are pinching their pennies is significant. It tells us that what we do — the information and service we provide — has value to people beyond the every day amusement of comics and puzzles.

Readers crave news about jobs, where the best values can be found and what money-saving recipes or home tips are available. We provide that and a lot more.

One more thing you should know about community newspapers in general, and The Journal in particular: The people who work here are folks just like you.

We go to the same churches, send our kids to the same schools and Little League parks, and eat at the same restaurants. We are a reflection of you. And we’re here to stay.