East Valley Tribune cuts stock listings

The East Valley Tribune, an Arizona newspaper that serves the area around Scottsdale, announced that it was cutting its stock listings. The announcement comes on the same day that the local hip-hop radio station was sold, and business columnist Tom Gibbons makes a connection between the two.

Gibbons writes, “Readership of stock listings has declined over the past decade as readers increasingly turned to the Internet to get quotes — which are more up-to-date. Some sites even offer you the ability to quickly view an entire portfolio.

“We felt we could use the space to bring other business news that would be more useful to more readers.

“So it was a double-whammy if you are a hip-hop fan who prefers to get your stock prices out of the newspaper.

“This is one of the problems with traditional mass media. It’s right there in the name — mass. We can’t really customize it to individual tastes.”

Read more here.