Caller-Times bucks trend, brings back stock, fund lists

While many newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, have chopped stock market and mutual fund listings for various reasons, Grumpy Editor is cheering the reverse action at the Caller-Times, Corpus Christi, Texas, which this week beefed up its listings.

“In the past year, we made some cuts that followed newspaper industry trends,” recaps Libby Averyt, vice president and editor of the E.W. Scripps Co. daily, in her Sunday column.  “Hearing analyst after analyst say that people go online for markets information, we eliminated lengthy stocks and mutual fund listings.”

She goes on to say, “Some markets are eliminating business sections altogether, opting to run a single business page in other sections of the paper, if at all. In some of the more crude conversations I've heard, the sentiment is that older readers are dying off anyway, so who cares if the cuts upset them for a while?

“Now, I'm no Harvard-educated businesswoman, but I am smart enough to realize that if we quit giving readers what they want, they'll quit buying us.”

Along with citing other enhanced features in the paper, Averyt mentions “our business section will make more sense.”

She points out, “Tuesday through Friday, we'll run a full page of stock listings, and on Saturday, we'll run stocks and a page of mutual funds. Best of all, our stocks page will carry a reader guarantee --- if there's a stock you want listed, call us…and we'll list it. Let me repeat: Call us and I guarantee we will include the stock in our new stocks listings.”

Does this Texas-style personal service pay off?

“Unlike many newspapers in this country, our circulation actually is growing and has been for the past two years," Averyt beams.

Grumpy Editor’s end-of-week leftover notes:

One word missing from most stories on this week’s prostitution scandal involving New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat who is resigning on Monday --- his political party affiliation…Subscription-seeking Condé  Nast Traveler, via a card inserted in the March issue, offers a one-year subscription for $10, with fine print that adds, “plus $3 shipping & handling.”  Why not just pitch $13?...Sneaky move, bad PR:  Cox Communications, quietly and without advance notice to its customers, upped its cable service cost on monthly bills, perhaps hoping the increase would go unnoticed…Boosting business for getting eyes checked:  A pumpkin-looking four-page Charles Schwab ad section in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal  had readers squinting at difficult-to-follow small white type against an orange background…Brent Hopkins, a departing business reporter from the shrinking editorial staff at the Daily News, Los Angeles, is making a major career switch.  He plans to become a cop, starting classes next month at the Los Angeles Police Academy…Some newspapers are being hoodwinked by some tricky Nigerians in a “puppy scam” through placement of enticing classified ads that tout expensive breeds available for adoption.  Bargain-seeking dog lovers, send money, sometimes followed by additional money.  But no puppy arrives.