Jeff Jarvis has a superb post up called New News: Deconstructing the newspaper. 

A week ago I spoke at a the Metzger Associates First Annual New Media Summit – a great example of a “local” event (local = Boulder).  It was moderated by Matt Branaugh – the Business Editor of the Daily Camera (our local paper.)  Fortunately, Matt is a good humored soul so when I asked the audience the question “how many of you read the stock tables in the newspaper” and not a single hand went up, Matt didn’t throw me out of the room when I looked at him and asked “why the fuck do you guys still print those things?”

Jeff – who knows newspapers and the newspaper business infinitely better than I do, goes through the question of “why stock tables” and much, much more in his post.