Vocal minority wants stock listings back

Maria Aspan in the New York Times writes that the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, after cutting their stock listings, brought back some of those statistics after a vocal minority complained.

Aspan wrote, “‘We always had in mind that we would see what the reaction was,’ said Sandra Sugawara, The Post’s assistant managing editor for financial news. When the paper announced in November that it was reducing its stock listings, it urged readers to write or e-mail if their stocks or mutual funds had been cut — and promised to consider restoring those listings. The Post, which announced the latest change on Tuesday, had already restored some of its stocks and mutual funds, one week after its initial cuts in November.

“Ms. Sugawara said that while many of The Post’s readers simply went online, a large and vocal contingent of longtime subscribers ‘had developed a habit of waking up and checking their stocks’ in the morning paper.

“The Post’s restoring of some stock listings would not affect its cost-cutting goals. According to Ms. Sugawara, the newly restored listings will make up only another quarter of a page. ‘The goal was always to save two pages, and that’s what we did,’ she said.

“The Journal, which downsized its stock pages earlier this month when it decreased the overall size of the paper, said last Monday that it would restore some tables after hearing from ‘several thousand’ readers.”

Read more here.