Failure to thrive in children results in decelerated growth. In a newspaper, failure to thrive results not only in deceleration of growth, but also in closure.

Tepid advertising and subscription support — the economic reasons, along with the unstable newsprint market, that HAN Network cited when announcing the closure earlier this month of several HAN Network publications — do not sustain a red hot news environment.

HAN Network was forced to cease production recently of the Monroe Courier weekly newspaper as well as for the companion publications the Easton Courier, Weston Forum, Redding Pilot, and the Stratford Star.

Did this send a shudder through our own news department? Definitely so. It is a distant drumbeat no one wants to hear.

Seven other HAN Network publications were also being swallowed up by Hearst Connecticut Media Group: The Ridgefield Press, the Wilton Bulletin, New Canaan Advertiser, the Darien Times, the Shelton Herald, the Trumbull Times, and the Milford Mirror. Hearst Newspapers also owns the weeklies Darien News, New Canaan News, Westport News, Fairfield Citizen, Norwalk Citizen, and the Greenwich Citizen. A town without a newspaper relies on spotty regional coverage that can only touch upon the subjects that matter to residents or online publications that may or may not utilize journalistic integrity.

Without the nourishment of advertising and subscription dollars, there is feeble sustenance for the operations required to get a newspaper from idea to keyboard to print: editorial and support staff, printing press staff and equipment, printing costs, management, supplies, technology… the list goes on. A “tepid” diet of either means that real news is put on a starvation diet.

Every week, Newtown Bee reporters and editors present a newspaper and website that we believe benefits readers. We do it because we believe in the power of the written word, because we believe that information presented accurately serves to keep the community aware and engaged in issues affecting the growth and direction of this town. The Newtown Bee has worked with and for residents for more than 140 years, staying true to its mission to bring fair reporting to its readers.

We are proud to be writing Newtown’s history, creating a permanent record of who was here, what happened, when an event occurred, where a significant event took place, and why it was important — recorded for future generations to look back upon. This is the charge community newspapers take on with great respect and honor.

We have said it before and say it again: community newspapers are critical in supplying residents with the facts. Opinions offered up willy-nilly on social media spread alternative facts that lead to confusion, misplaced sentiments, and division.

It is outrageous that publications that have been the heart and soul of communities for decades are forced to shut the doors because businesses in their communities and area and residents of those communities fail to support them.

Word of mouth and rumors were once the only mode of spreading “news”; we trust that today’s citizens demand a more vetted form of information. Be prepared for a reality that is more fiction than fact, and one in which only targeted audiences discover the wonders of a community’s makeup, if community newspapers continue to fall by the roadside.

We are saddened, we are horrified, we are heartbroken to witness the loss of local community newspapers.

We hope you are, too.