Denver Post plans to cut standalone biz section

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• Another way to drive off more readers, and at a time when business is more important than ever, and, if properly done, should be the most compelling and sexiest local news section. See my blog for the underdiscussed reasons behind the newspaper crisis:
  http://www.roguecolumnist.com

• My decision to leave the world of financial journalism looks smarter every day.

• In the midst of an economic crisis, it is baffling that so many large daily newspapers are burying their business sections. This is a time when the daily newspaper can provide the financial information people need to struggle with their daily lives. But that information should be prominently displayed and easy to grasp for the reader. This is yet another reason that print newspapers are losing their importance. I realize we're moving toward online, but let's not leave readers adrift without an anchor in the process.

• It's really not that shocking of a decision, and it's probably best for the future of the daily newspaper. The only reason business sections exist in the first place is because of stock listings and financial data, which most newspapers have cut because they're no longer viable to the majority of investors.

  What's left in a daily business section? Normally it's chock full of wire copy that, like the financial data, is more than 12 hours behind the news cycle. Wire copy is something the vast majority of readers don't care about. If the paper is lucky, it's also got a few staff-written pieces on local business, but that usually depends on the size of the publication. Most small to mid-size dailies can't even keep up with that sort of output.

  The fact is most local business stories have much more impact on the average reader than much of what passes for metro copy these days. If a newspaper is serious about integrating its business coverage into its metro infrastructure, I say bravo.

• The newspaper industry has spent the past 25 years cutting back staff, reducing newshole, failing to reinvest in its product, falling behind on salaries, etc. ... And now, we're left with a generation of newspaper executives who don't know how to run a business in a competitive environment who are wondering where all the readers are going. They just blame the Internet. What a crock!

• It's back to the future; before 1980, few dailies below the national level had standalone biz sections. In back of Sports was the typical home, and the content, such as it was, was mainly to wrap around the stock tables. As those disappear, there's no more demand-side pressure for freestanding biz sections than there is for food or books.

  The smart thing, of course, would be to make business and economics reporting integral to the local news operation. But given the deeply-ingrained hostility to markets in most newsrooms, it'll be a tough sell.

• When you're losing customers, give them less. Does anyone really expect that to work?

• Yes, that's the ticket, give the consumer LESS and that will end the slide of newspapers. Nice move, Lean Dean.

• Local business sections *could be* a main driver of readership. Yes, business stories will still have a place online, and there, it could be prominent. But don't kid yourselves: newspaper managers are just as clueless online as they are offline. Witness the Mpls. Star Tribune, which buries its business section on its *web site* -- under the "news" tab at the top, the fifth item down. Utterly clueless, and utterly unnecessary.

  These people simply don't know what they are doing. It's as if they are *trying* to destroy their business.

• any editor/reporter worth his/her salt should know that business news is also general-interest news, when reported and written properly. if you can't see that basic, human-interest point, then you shouldn't be leading a major paper.