DATE: Wednesday, July 30, 1997              TAG: 9707300492

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: By TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

CHIPS LURE DOW JONES TO VIRGINIA

Attracted by the computer-chip factories sprouting up in Virginia and the pace of corporate expansion, a unit of Dow Jones & Co. said it will open a news bureau in Richmond this fall.

``I'd like to open it as soon as possible, but it may take two or three months,'' said Rick Stine, deputy managing editor of Dow Jones News Service. ``I still have to find a reporter and line up office space.''

The news service's Richmond reporter will concentrate on economic trends and corporate developments throughout Virginia, including issues involving privately held companies, Stine said.

Virginia is home to 16 Fortune 500 companies, including Dominion Resources Inc., Norfolk Southern Corp., and Reynolds Metals Co.

The news service will continue to handle routine news about Virginia companies from its headquarters in Jersey City, N.J., where it has 24 reporters.

Opening a Richmond office is part of a broad expansion drive at Dow Jones News Service, which opened bureaus in Charlotte; Philadelphia; Miami; Minneapolis; and Palo Alto, Calif., last year. Another office is scheduled to open next month in Orange County, Calif.

``What we've been looking for are regions of the country that have shown significant economic growth in the past few years,'' Stine said.

``We're hoping to open additional bureaus next year, but nothing has been solidified,'' he said.

The Dow Jones wire service already has bureaus in eight North American cities, including Washington, D.C., and Toronto.

Dow Jones & Co., the news service's New York-based parent, publishes several newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal and Barron's. Dow Jones also provides financial data via computer to securities traders and investment managers.

Although Dow Jones News Service and the Wall Street Journal operate separately, the newspaper's reporters routinely produce stories for the wire service and the Journal carries the news service's stories.

Most of the news service's 200,000 subscribers are involved in securities trading, brokerage activity and investment management.

The expansion effort at Dow Jones News Service has occurred amid heightened competition for users of up-to-the-minute financial information. Two other providers of financial news and data - London-based Reuters Holdings P.L.C. and Bloomberg L.P. in New York - have been building up their North American news operations.

``Do we keep a close eye on what these two firms do? We sure do,'' said Stine. However, the decision at Dow Jones News Service to open additional bureaus wasn't directly related to the activities at Reuters and Bloomberg, he said.

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