By: E&P Staff The trimming of business news in print newspapers continued apace Wednesday, with The Desert News in Palm Springs, Calif., and the Mail Tribune in Medford, Ore., both announcing changes in format and content.
But nearly a year after The Orange County (Calif.) Register eliminated its standalone business section, the separate section will be relaunched four days a week beginning Thursday, the paper said.
Last January, the Register folded its business coverage inside its News A-section. But in a story by Mary Ann Milbourn, the Register announced it will restore the standalone section and rename it Business from Marketplace.
The standalone section will run Thursdays through Sundays. Business news will continue to run in the News section the other three days of the week.
"Readers have told us that local news and advertising are priorities and that they prefer a separate Business section," Chris Meyer, the deputy editor in charge of business coverage, said in the Register story. "This reconfiguration enables us to deliver on those desires."
The Desert Sun took the opposite tack, moving national business coverage, including stock and mutual fund reports, into the A-section on weekdays, beginning with Wednesday's paper.
Local business coverage was moved to a new Valley section that includes local news and features.
In a note to readers, President and Publisher Richard A. Ramhoff said the Sunday Business section will be expanded to feature more local business coverage.
The change is part of a redesign that includes themed sections on Wednesdays (Food & Drink), Thursdays (Health) and Saturdays (Home & Garden).
"The current economy has forced us to look closely at how we can be more efficient with newsprint and ink," Ramhoff wrote. "But as we make these changes, we've made sure to keep our core local news component highly visible."
Also Wednesday, Medford Mail Tribune Editor Bob Hunter said stock listings would no longer be published in the print newspaper.
"In the surveys we've done and information we've gathered from readers, the stock listings have always come out near the bottom of the list," Hunter said in an article Wednesday. 'With updated information on the Web available 24 hours a day, the number of people who use the newspaper to track their stocks has fallen to the point that it doesn't make sense for us to dedicate a large amount of space to it.'
The Mail Tribune is also dropping the syndicated Motley Fool feature that had run on Sundays.
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