Derek Donovon, Readers Representative, for the Kansas City Star, reported recent customer grips. “We’re the ones who don’t use computers,” said one caller. “I feel like you’re punishing your best paper readers.”
The Star readers are complaining to Donovon about the “cut back on its stock and mutual fund tables in the Wednesday – Friday Business section.”
Donovon said readers reported that newspapers had a distinct advantage over the Internet. They could look at the stock prices anywhere, but the larger print page offered a unique opportunity to “look across the columns and see trends. That would take forever on the computer,” one reader said.
Ironically, even loyal print readers are being pushed to the Internet by newspapers themselves. Cutbacks of features that are unique to the newspaper reading experience–such as stock and mutual fund charts–are the first to go. Given this reality, is there any wonder the Internet is winning over dead tree publishing ?