Columbian eliminates biz page, Sunday business section

Craig Brown, the editor of the Columbian in Vancouver, Washington, writes about why the paper has eliminated its daily business page and Sunday business section.

Brown writes, “Business news is another priority. We eliminated our daily business cover page and our standalone Sunday business section. We have not reduced local business news. It’s been mingled with the rest of our local news report. But it’s harder to find, and we are carrying less national and international business news, which has to compete for space on our wire pages.

“Some readers are missing the Money and Markets page that ran inside our C section on Tuesdays-Fridays. I am not a fan of this page. Today there are many better ways to get stock prices. There’s the internet. Cable TV has several business channels that display stock prices in the crawler across the bottom. You can get a customized stock report on your mobile phone or tablet. Yet readers say they miss our page, so we will try to return it.

“Financial support is going to be key to all of these plans. We are a business, and can’t afford to spend more money than we take in. Although our readers have faithfully supported us in this crisis, we will have to see recovery in advertising revenue before we can make this command module fully operational again.”

Read more here.