Traveling about America, picking up the local papers, one might not notice it at first. In some ways, newspapers seem fatter, with more sections that seem to fall out as you open them, entertainment and shopping guides in particular.

But look a little closer and you do see it. Business sections, long a staple of even the smallest dailies, are disappearing. The Winston-Salem Journal cut its business section back in August. The Akron Beacon Journal dropped its section back in March.

Instead of stand-alone business sections, the trend is toward a single page of business news, or business stories spread through the paper. Often it means fewer business reporters and less local business news.

The irony, of course, is that this is happening precisely at the time when papers across the country are talking up hyper-local coverage, putting more resources--reporters and editors--on the streets to cover the local news while cutting back on national and international coverage.

The push for more local coverage is driven by the best of intentions: to halt the declines in circulation that have plagued dailies in recent years.

So why then the slashing of local business sections?

In large part, it's the decision by papers to quit printing stock tables, which became redundant as readers turned to the internet for stock listings. The listings, which could take up several pages, made up the bulk of business sections. Without the listings, there's not that much business news to justify an entire section.

But it's also driven by money. In the relentless push by publishers to trim costs, they're looking everywhere, and standalone business departments look particularly expendable, more so than, say, sports or local news.

In North Carolina, the Winston-Salem Journal cut five jobs when it dropped its business section over the summer. Only one was from the business staff. Mike Miller, president and publisher, says the move has allowed the paper to reallocate resources for more local coverage while giving the paper more flexibility on the production side to add or drop pages.

“We are trying to focus on the areas we do best, and stocks isn’t one of them,” Miller says. “People’s reading habits change and we have to change as well. When we commit to a separate business section, it leaves us little flexibility on weak business days. We’ll still have business in the paper every day. Big stories will go on the front or the front of the local section.”

At the Akron Beacon Journal, the business section is gone on weekdays but survives on Saturdays and Sundays.

“We were one of the last papers to put the majority of stocks online. That’s where the users are,” said Bruce Winges, vice president and editor of the Beacon Journal.

“If I had my druthers of course I would want a standalone business section. I don’t think the quantity or the quality of our business reporting has gone down, but the perception of the reader is that they have lost something.”

But another factor behind the cutting of standalone business sections is the notion of flexibility. Business reporters are specialists, whereas the backbone of any news department is the general assignment reporter, the person who can cover any story.

Specialists by definition don't have the ability to jump into any story and pull it off. They can't be moved around in a newsroom, as so many chess pieces.

Back in the business department, with a daily business section to put out, the business reporter is somewhat insulated from the budget knife.
 
But once the business section goes, and the business reporters are moved into the main newsroom, they become very vulnerable at budget-cutting time.

And that has a lot of people worried. One is Andrew Leckey, director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University. Getting rid of the business section and moving business reporting out into the main newsroom carries a price.

“There is less focus on covering business if the paper doesn’t have a business section,” says Leckey.

If a paper doesn't have reporters who are trained in business journalism, it will miss a lot of what's important to local business readers. For example, a general assignment reporter won’t cover a new Lowe’s opening in town from the same perspective and background as a seasoned business reporter.

The paper will miss the bigger business stories that only a seasoned business reporter, someone on the street each day, would pick up on.

“We think reporters should be specialists," says Leckey. "We think it’s a mistake if they become less of a specialist. It’s not good for the reader.”