Many of you are aware, at least vaguely, that the American newspaper is disappearing. Dailies and weeklies have not “fallen on tough times” or “hit a rough patch” – they are dying, everywhere.

There is no safe publication; there is no universal solution waiting to be implemented. And there are no bad guys. Newspapers are not failing because of greedy owners, biased journalists or bad headlines. They are closing because there is a belief among many consumers of news that information, even information that takes money and time to unearth, understand and report, should be free. Why pay for something that pops up gratis on your social media feed?

What some people may not know is that the information they read for free on Facebook, Twitter and other sites – or see on the local TV news – often comes from a newspaper staffed by paid reporters and editors. The perception that the void left by dead newspapers will be filled by people posting on social media ignores that reality. It is like being untroubled by a drought because your well still has water. Without rain, even the deepest well will eventually run dry.

In a special section on Sunday, Aug. 4, titled “A Future Without a Front Page,” the New York Times outlined just how dire the situation has become for the nation’s newspapers. Here are some of the statistics cited in the report:

■“Over the last 15 years, about 2,100 local newspapers – or roughly a quarter of all local newsrooms – have either merged with a competitor or ceased printing.”

■“About 6,800 local newspapers continue to operate across the country, but many are shells of their former selves.”

■“More than 200 counties have no newspapers at all, a news vacuum that affects an estimated 3.2 million residents.”

■“Print readers are disappearing even faster than print newspapers: Since 2004, total circulation of dailies and weeklies has declined to about 70 million from 122 million.”

The locally owned Concord Monitor has been around for more than 150 years. We don’t know what the future holds, but we hope it’s 150 more, in whatever form that takes. We do know right now the Monitor has a dedicated readership and a deep impact on our communities. Like many newspapers, we have been forced to adapt to a changing media landscape and the growing challenges of putting out a newspaper and website with a degree of efficiency that would have been unimaginable to a newsroom back in the 1980s.

Whatever your opinion of the local newspaper, we hope you understand the role it plays. A newspaper’s main mission is a simple one: to tell the stories of the communities it serves. This can be as basic as announcing births, deaths, marriages and graduations, or as complicated as embarking on a months-long investigation to get at a hidden truth. And even in this ever-changing landscape, the Monitor continues to reach more people in its readership area than any other outlet.

In this era of never-ending coverage and pontification, a newspaper – whether in print or online – still has the ability to cut through the noise and get everybody on the same page, if only for a moment. That’s no small feat. If the day ever comes when that doesn’t happen anymore, if the very concept of a newsroom disappears, we know the reporters, editors and photographers will still find a way to do what they do.

It’s the people who don’t know what it is they’ve lost that we worry about.