Small California paper cuts stock listings

The Vacaville Reporter, a daily newspaper in California, announced in its Sunday paper that it was cutting its stock listings and making other changes to its business section. It’s asking its readers to look for stock listings online and offering functions such as portfolio tracking on its Web site.

“Readers will be able to review local stocks of interest online, spot the major movers in the market, glance at a snapshot of movement on the stock exchanges, create their own portfolio or check a stock quote,” said the Media News paper.

In addition, some of its business columnists are also moving online. “The Reporter’s Sunday business columnists will move online, starting Feb. 5. Each week we will profile details from their online columns. Brent Terrill, a registered representative of Edward D. Jones & Co. in Vacaville, will offer a column on financial issues each week, instead of every other week. Vern Sandusky’s Techline column now will only be available online. And returning as a business columnist after a three-year hiatus is Tim Taub, the managing member and financial consultant for Glenbrook Financial, LLC. All the business columns will be available and searchable on the site free of charge for six months.”

The paper says the move will allow it to offer more columnists “down the line.” Read about all of the changes here.

It’s precisely this kind of change from a smaller paper, in contrast to the big metropolitan papers, that the stock listings services provided by AP and others fear. Vacaville is near Sacramento.