OK, MAYBE IT’S ME. But I … don’t … think… so….

For years now, I’ve been listening to the dire predictions of the death of newspapers. I just don’t buy it and, frankly, I’m getting just a bit tired of hearing it again … and again … and again.

I believe most of the people who predict our demise are woefully uninformed. And they tend to generalize the problems of metro newspapers as metastasizing throughout the entire industry, including small-town dailies and mom-and-pop weeklies.

Still, I’m sure there’s some delight on the part of TV news announcers, who have been vulture-like in their patience, waiting for us to draw our last breath.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column on the topic and sent it out to my 1,500 subscribers.

Here’s the skinny from that piece:

Daily circulation at The New York Times dropped 3.5% to 1,039,031. The Times’ Sunday circ was down 1.7% to 1,451,233.

USA Today lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 2,113,725 due to a decline in hotel copies.

Daily circulation at The Boston Globe skidded 13.6% to 302,638 copies. Sunday decreased 11.2%.

But at community newspapers the outlook is bright.

“Just about all of the research and news reports on the ‘struggling’ newspaper industry have been based on what’s happening at the top 100 major metropolitan newspapers, maybe the top 250,” said Brian Steffens, Executive Director of the National Newspaper Assn.

“That doesn’t tell the story of the remaining 1,200 daily newspapers or 8,000 community weekly papers in America.”

So … whose head is in the sand?

Ed Henninger can be reached at — edhenninger.wordpress.com.

© 2009 Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.