Grades for online biz sections: NYTimes and St. Pete Times get As

Douglas McIntyre of 24/7 Wall St. assesses the content for the online business sections of the top 25 papers in the country and gives As to the New York Times and the St. Petersburg Times and an A- to the Houston Chronicle, but a D- to the Newark Star Ledger and a D to the Arizona Republic and the Portland Oregonian.

Here is what McIntyre wrote about the New York Times and Los Angeles Times:

1. The New York Times. It would be hard for any other metropolitan daily to compete with the Times. It has substantially larger editorial resources than any other metropolitan operation. Its most significant drawback is that it runs a reasonable amount of copy which is duplicated elsewhere, particularly by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. NYT.com makes impressive use of blogs, charting, video, and other interactive features. Perhaps the best content run in the section on a regular basis are the “DealBook� area which covers the financial sector and “Bits� which covers technology. Ideally, the NYT business section would not have to run such a large amount of copy which overlaps with other sources, but being complete trumps that. Grade: A

2. Like most of the other online financial editions on this list, the LA Times runs a great deal of copy from sources like Bloomberg and the AP. As might be expected, entertainment and real estate news are overrepresented in the paper, but that is almost certainly in the interests of the readership. Except for the standard buttons for Digg and Facebook after each story, the section does a fairly poor job of engaging readers. The stock and investing tools portion of the site are weak. “The Biz� section on entertainment and “Money & Co.� parts of the site are very good. Grade: B-.

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