Challenges and Change at The Post

Decisions to reduce daily stock listings and tighten the newsroom budget may leave readers wondering what is happening to The Post. Post executives don't want to lose readers but feel they must cut costs to keep the business healthy.

The slump in circulation and advertising over the past few years and readers' move to the Internet are seriously affecting newspapers across the country. One big newspaper company, Knight-Ridder Inc., was sold, and another, Tribune Co., is on the block.

The Post is not in that kind of trouble. The cutbacks in stock listings will save The Post slightly less than $2 million a year. But it doesn't damage the core of the newsroom's work, which costs more than $100 million a year, according to Publisher Bo Jones.

Post editors know longtime readers seldom applaud change, but shedding some traditions may be necessary to protect the core of newspaper journalism: reporting.

Reader Ronnie Estes on Maryland's Kent Island wrote: "I understand that subscriptions are falling, but making the paper less comprehensive in favor of saving money hardly seems the solution. . . . If I wanted to read the news on the Web, I would not subscribe to print. . . . Please don't have us believe that trimming content is the answer!"

Executive Editor Len Downie prepared Post staffers in a Tuesday memo for further cutbacks. About 80 of 900 newsroom positions were lost this year through buyouts. Other Post departments also are cutting costs.

Downie's memo, which ended up on the Web, said, "Readership and economic challenges remain daunting. Our goal is to be the one newsroom that does this right. We must produce high-quality, compelling journalism and carry out our public service mission while adjusting our cost structure to shifting advertising revenues. We are not just cutting costs. We believe that everything we are doing will make the newspaper stronger and increase readership of the printed paper and washingtonpost.com. We are re-directing newsroom staff and resources to our highest priority journalism in print and on the Web."

Some changes will be obvious, such as the stock listings. Other shifts may not be so noticeable. Some changes, such as those in the TV listings, didn't save that much money; they were made to expand what The Post offers. More broadly, there will be fewer general-assignment reporters and more beat reporters; that will ensure the paper carries out one of its primary functions -- accountability journalism.

Other changes may be welcomed. Some stories may be shorter, and that might please time-starved readers. Several sections are being overhauled to make them more compelling. The Health, Food and Home sections will be re-launched early next year, and work is underway to create a new Sunday Style and Arts section. Earlier this year, the Outlook section was revamped.

But reducing stock listings -- from 3,700 to 1,000 stocks and from 4,500 to 2,000 mutual funds -- did not go over well with the more than 2,600 readers who complained vociferously. The Post may be the last big newspaper to be doing this; most did so years ago. And most stockholders get listings online. The Post, unlike a lot of other newspapers, is offering to restore some stocks at readers' requests and has left room for at least 200 additions.

Jill Dutt, assistant managing editor for financial news, said, "Even with the cuts, we still publish more price/trading information for individual stocks and mutual funds than does the New York Times or the Financial Times. We will keep for now our full listings in Sunday Business. But trimming there also is not off the table. I considered and rejected going the way that some newspapers have gone: eliminating trading data for all but the 100 largest stocks or the 100 local stocks and instead publishing only trends and summaries of market activities overall. I see news value in publishing as many daily price change quotes as we can." Dutt will e-mail anyone who writes to stocks@washpost.com a short guide to tracking their investment portfolios through washingtonpost.com.

That didn't satisfy a reader from Olney, who told Dutt in a washingtonpost.com chat: "For me and for so many other Washington Post customers, Nov. 14, 2006, is the day that The Washington Post died. What numbskull thought that to save newsprint costs, it would be wise to perform a slash and burn edit of the stock tables. In this new reduced format, they are useless."

Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, disagrees: "I've always viewed stock tables as one of the more dubious things that newspapers offer. They really are little more than promotional material for stockbrokers. . . . Plus, they're of interest to only a fraction of the readership, and they keep alive the fiction that the stock market is a surrogate for the economy. . . . I'll be glad to see the end of all printed stock tables."

Some think the reduced listings are fine. A District reader said on the chat: "I don't get why people are so up in arms. Stock tables are DATA, available in 100 different places online. I'd much rather have the WP use its precious X number of pages available every day to give me original reporting and analysis on local, national and international issues."

Excellent point. The Post's most important mission is to give readers news they can't get elsewhere. Stock listings aren't the heart and soul of a newspaper. Reporting is. What The Post and other newspapers have to protect is the independent reporting of local, national and international news. That's what readers -- and this democracy -- can't afford to lose.

Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or atombudsman@washpost.com.