LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: BUSINESS NEWS ADVICE NEEDED

Here is something for money-minded readers to consider: How important is news about business and finance, and would a daily dose keep you better informed?

This may sound like a heavy topic for Sunday morning, but it is something we have begun to give serious consideration.

Currently, the Southeast Missourian has a weekly page called Finance. It is in the Saturday paper each week. In addition to a wrapup story about the stock markets for the week from the Associated Press, the Finance page also include a chart showing current rates for certificates of deposit and mortgages from Cape Girardeau financial institutions.

The page also carries a list of selected New York Stock Exchange stocks showing weekly changes, along with a few over-the-counter stocks and some mutual funds. Finally, there is a chart showing four months of Dow Jones and S&P 500 closes.

One gauge of readership of the page is the stocks that are listed on the page. Each week readers are invited to request stocks of local interest for the Finance page listings. In the past six months we have received about half a dozen requests. That either indicates readers are satisfied with the listings or don't pay any attention to them at all.

Another gauge is one that caught us by surprise recently. Because of computer problems at the Associated Press in New York, we didn't get the stock tables for the Finance page, so we didn't have a Finance page that week. Not one reader called.

The weekly stock listings aren't to be confused with the daily stocks of local interest that we publish. These are all stocks that have some connection to the area through existing industry or retail outlets.

Finally, we publish a weekly Business section on Mondays. This covers news mainly about local businesses, changes in personnel and the like. It includes features about what businesses are doing that is innovated and interesting.

Collectively, the Southeast Missourian devotes considerable space to business news. Which brings us back to the original question asked a different way: Are we giving you what you want?

An alternative -- and a long-range goal -- is to have a daily business page. This page would have a select listing of stocks with information from the previous day's trading. In addition to the Big Board, NASDAQ and mutual fund listings, it might include commodities markets as well. And stocks of local interest would be a key part of the daily page.

There might be more rates other than CDs and mortgages that would be of interest. And there is certainly plenty of business news available every day from the Associated Press that doesn't get into the paper because of space and other considerations.

What I am looking for is this: your suggestions for how the Southeast Missourian could provide meaningful information about business news. Does a daily business page sound good? What kinds of stock tables and other listings would be useful?

Considering that a move to a daily business page would be a major commitment on our part, it is essential that we proceed carefully in that direction. We have been talking to other papers our size who seem to be doing a decent job. The key question we are asking is this: What do your readers think of what you are doing?

That is the critical factor in this newspaper. What would readers like to see, given the size of the Southeast Missourian, which means we obviously cannot duplicate the Wall Street Journal or the business coverage of large, metropolitan newspapers?

If you have some ideas, drop me a note or give me a call. The address is P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702. My telephone number is 336-6611, extension 252. Don't be afraid to leave a voice-mail message if I am not in my office. Thanks for your help.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.