Does the Dow Matter?  NPR's weekday newscasts air 37 times a day
and usually include stock market figures. But are those numbers
valuable to the average listener?  "As a data bit for a civilian
audience the Dow is flat out useless at best," wrote Tom DeVries
from Mariposa, CA. "Of course the people who actually do know
what it all means keep track minute by minute and don't need NPR
to tell them."  The Ombudsman regularly hears from people with
similar concerns. Some wonder what exactly it means when a
newscaster says "the Dow fell 10" or "jumped 25 points today."
NPR gives Wall Street futures and foreign markets before Wall
Street opens at 9:30 a.m. After that point, NPR reports the Dow
Jones industrial average and gives closing numbers into the
evening. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes also make it into the
mix.  The coverage is so consistent many listeners might not
give it a second thought. "It's been done since the dawn of
time," said Robert Garcia, executive producer of newscasts,
"which for us was in th