Today's Business section carries an announcement that The N&O print edition will stop carrying comprehensive stock tables in Tuesday-Friday papers beginning next week. We will continue publishing four pages of tables and summaries on Saturday, when we provide weekly roundups. We'll provide new information, highlights and expanded tables charting local and regional stocks each day. We also provide online tools and will start a free phone line for people without computers to check stocks.

Blog readers probably are among those who are responding "it's about time" or "who cares" to this announcement. Those with Internet access can get much quicker, more specific, detailed and timely stock information online. Here's a link to our tools on the Business home page.

The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and others have dropped daily tables recently, and many papers have trimmed them more gradually over several years. We've been considering this change for quite awhile for several reasons: fewer people use the tables, newsprint costs are up and we want to focus our efforts on the coverage we provide that others don't.

Among such efforts is our "N&O 100" annual look at North Carolina's economy through the performance of its publicly traded companies, coming this Sunday. Also this Sunday: the launch of a summerlong series exploring the development explosion along our coast and its effects, which are many.

06/01/06 at 14:45
It's about time! Now you have more room for those alphabetic obituaries.

06/01/06 at 19:55
Dear Melanie,

Welcome back from your blog hiatus.

I agree with you regarding the stock tables.

When you give readers the "N&O 100" annual look at North Carolina's economy through the performance of its publicly traded companies, will The N&O's own McClatchy Company be one of the 100?

There is certainly a lot of reader interest in McClatchy Co. itself , and in particular its business and news plans for The N&O and Charlotte Observer.

I'm sure you know there are lots of rumors and inside "whispers" going around.

Will The N&O be able to say what's being planned other than the old "only the best for our readers" stuff?

Will The N&O remain pretty much as it is or will there be an effort to improve it?

Some folks were talking at lunch today about how The N&O will handle the matter of reparations for the Wilmington Riots and the decades of injustice which followed.

Everyone agreed the three greatest financial beneficiaries of those horrors were the Daniels family, The N&O and the Democratic Party.

Do The N&O and McClatchy have a plan concerning how you all will inform readers about reparations and their impact on your business and North Carolina businesses?

Also, how are The N&O and McClatchy planning to manage the inevitable conflicts of interest that will emerge when determining who will bear what share of the financial costs of reparations?.

Everyone at lunch today was concerned that the costs for reparations would be passed mostly to the public.

We all agreed that wouldn't be right. But nobody thought The N&O would look out for the public’s interest in that matter.

What can you tell us about reparation planning to date?

I’m told McClatchy’s CEO, Gary Pruitt, was in NC just within the past few days.

Did he discuss reparations with anyone here?

Finally, two news tips.

NCSU Econ prof. Craig Newmark's recommended summer reading list was featured in Business Week. Craig is an extremely intelligent, interesting and amusing guy. He blogs at Newmark’s Door. I think an interview with him could make an interesting Business Section story.

Also, Chapel Hill resident and Duke professor Vivek Wadhwa has been for some time a regular columnist for the electronic version of Business Week. He was also recently invited to address a luncheon in New York city sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Again, I think there's a story there for your Business Section.

Sincerely,

John
www.johnincarolina.com

06/02/06 at 14:39
John,
These are a lot of questions, most off point to the post.

* McClatchy is not based in North Carolina, so is not part of the N&O 100 (now called the N&O Portfolio) report.
* The purchase of Knight-Ridder has not closed, so there's not much to say yet about your questions. We look forward to working in a group with so many good newspapers; any cooperation on my end of things (news) will indeed be aimed at improving our journalism.
* Publisher Orage Quarles III said in our story that he plans to review the Wilmington race riot report and recommendations. I'm sure we will report on any response that occurs.
* Thanks for the news tips.

06/02/06 at 16:33
Melanie,

I don't agree "most " of my questions are "off point to the post."

Please tell us which questions you think are off point and why.

Thank you.

John
www.johnincarolina.com

06/03/06 at 10:33
Miss Melanie - I agree, drop the stock tables. I have most of my stock stuff on my homepage with 15 minute updates. However, for either Saturday or Sunday's paper, I could see running a list of NC top 100 public traded companies.