Talk of Denver Post combining biz and metro sections

Michael Roberts of Westword, an alternative newspaper in Denver, writes Wednesday that Denver Post editor Greg Moore has held discussions about combining the paper’s business section with its metro section.

If that happens, the Post would join other papers such as the Indianapolis Star, Columbus Dispatch, the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Akron Beacon-Journal in cutting the stand-alone business section that became a staple in the 1980s of metropolitan dailies.

Roberts wrote, “Moore hopes changes can help improve this outlook at the Post, and in a late June staff meeting, he discussed some options in between exhortations that attendees not share the conversation with yours truly. Among the most controversial notions was combining Denver & the West and Business, thereby doing away with a stand-alone business section. The business crew’s numbers are down: Shanley’s gone, reporter Greg Griffin will soon split for a year-long fellowship at Columbia University, scribe Julie Dunn is on maternity leave, and editor Todd Stone took a job at the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

“However, Moore declined to discuss what impact, if any, these absences might have on a potential Business merger. ‘I can’t be questioned about every element of communication internally,’ he e-mails. ‘What I can tell you is the idea of combining business and metro is not even approved, and I am not sure it will happen.'”

The Shanley he’s referring to is Post business reporter Will Shanley, who left for a public relations job.Â

Read more here.