Readers lament stock-listing loss

The News & Observer last week made a lot of readers mad, deliberately.

The elimination of daily stock listings, which began Tuesday, brought forth a steady stream of protests from investors whose reactions ranged from disappointment to bewilderment to anger.

"It is so important that I'm probably going to have to take another paper or change papers," said Charles Ingram of Sanford. Milton Heath, professor of government at UNC-Chapel Hill, said, "This is the one thing the paper could do to cause me to drop the newspaper."

The paper told readers about the cuts with notices in the Business section beginning five days before the change and in a column last Sunday by Executive Editor Melanie Sill. The explanation: a need to cut expenses in the face of rising newsprint costs, and a recognition that stock owners increasingly are going to the Internet to follow their stocks. There, they can get real-time price quotes any time of day and a wealth of other information about their holdings.

To ease the pain, the paper enhanced the daily market summaries it publishes, added an automated phone line where people can check stock prices and pointed readers to the N&O's own "Stock Center" on the Web, with detailed information on individual stocks.

The newspaper received some 100-plus phone calls and e-mails protesting the change, a smaller reaction than expected. As of Friday there had been seven cancellations. Editors had braced for hundreds or even thousands of calls. The response told them that either the advance notice took some of the shock out of the change or fewer readers than expected rely on the paper for stocks in the computer-savvy Triangle.

Still, Business Editor Mary Cornatzer says she recognizes the impact on regular stocks users, especially older readers, and regretted the loss to them. "It may not be many, but for that core group of people, I've taken some value away. I feel bad about that. I think a Business section that doesn't give its readers all of what they want suffers a little bit. We'll try to make it up with a stronger local report, a stronger national report."

Cornatzer did say a few readers thanked her for the change, saying it eliminated clutter that they didn't use.

Dozens of other newspapers have reduced their listings recently, for the same reasons as The N&O, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Chicago Tribune. That makes editors here feel a little more comfortable with the change, but it's not seen as a positive trend by one academic observer. Chris Roush, assistant professor and head of the business journalism program at UNC-Chapel Hill, worries that the stocks whacking could lead to further reductions in business news coverage.

"One (concern) is the fear that newspaper managers, the next time they're cutting, will head to the Business section because that's where they last went," he said.

He noted that The Cincinnati Enquirer, after cutting its stock listings, moved the business pages to the back of another section.

N&O editors say no such further trauma to business news is in the works. In fact, the paper enhanced its Saturday Business section several months ago and will keep that four-page report, including a roundup of the week's stocks results.

Myself, I worry not so much about the future of business news, but about the trend of news space-cutting in general. The reduction in business pages amounts to two pages a day, Tuesday through Friday, saving about $200,000 a year. That comes on top of three pages cut from the Sunday Work & Money section earlier this year, six pages a week from the regular news and sports sections and four pages from the weekly Channels TV magazine.