Michigan editor reacts to readers on cut stock listings

John Foren, the editor of the Flint Journal in Michigan, writes in response to readers who called in about the paper’s decision to cut its printed stock listings.

Foren writes, “We’ve been talking for years about reducing our stock pages, influenced by the legions who check online accounts for how their stocks and mutual funds are doing. Few newspapers run full stock pages anymore — that’s not a justification for us to make the change, too, just a reflection of the public’s changing habits.

“After sampling readers for their stock favorites, we eliminated one full daily page of financial figures and replaced it with a column of stocks of local interest.

“Last Sunday, we began running a quarter page of mutual fund information — instead of our previous two full stock pages.

“Dozens of people called and e-mailed me. A few said they liked the overall changes, which included moving our weather map to the second page of the A section. But most said they missed the stock pages.”

Read more here.