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The Tampa Bay Times, previously named the St. Petersburg Times, traces its origins to the West Hillsborough Times, a weekly newspaper established in 1884. It all started in the backroom of a pharmacy on a hand-cranked press in Dunedin, Florida. The paper had a circulation of 480. At the time, Pinellas County did not exist; the area was part of Hillsborough County. Moreover, the city of St. Petersburg was still four years from existing.
A.C. Turner, who purchased the paper in late 1884, moved it to modern day Clearwater, Florida. In 1892, the weekly newspaper moved to the newly formed town of St. Petersburg, and by 1898 it was officially renamed the St. Petersburg Times.
The Times became bi-weekly in 1907, and began publishing six days a week in 1912 with William Straub as editor. Later that year, Straub sold majority ownership to Paul Poynter, a former Indiana newspaper publisher. Straub would continue as associate editor for the next 27 years, and was instrumental in civic and community betterment, namely the preservation of the city’s expansive waterfront park system. Poynter converted the Times to a seven-day newspaper after he purchased it from Straub; however, the daily paper was rarely profitable.
Following William Straub’s death in 1939, Paul Poynter's son, Nelson, became editor and took majority control of the paper by 1947. For the next 31 years, Nelson Poynter tirelessly worked on improving the paper’s finances and prestige for its quality in reporting. Upon his death in 1978, Nelson had willed the majority of stock to the local journalism school, the not for profit Modern Media Institute – which now bears his name. The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is adjacent to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus.
In November 1986, the Evening Independent was merged into the Times and ceased publication. Nelson Poynter was succeeded as editor by Eugene Patterson (1978–1988), Andrew Barnes (1988–2004), Paul Tash (2004–2010; chair of the Times Publishing Company since 2004 and the Poynter Institute since 2007) Neil Brown (2010–2017), and Mark Katches (2018–present).
On January 1, 2012, the St. Petersburg Times was renamed the Tampa Bay Times, and on May 2016, the Times acquired its longtime competitor The Tampa Tribune, which the Tampa Bay Times immediately ceased publishing. Today, the Tampa Bay Time, Florida’s largest newspaper, has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes and their mission remains the same: commitment to local journalism, and the allegiance to truth.
A travelling exhibit entitled Moments of Truth: An Exploration of Journalism’s Past, Present and Future is on display at the Museum of History from April 21- 30, 2025.
Curated by Poynter’s media literacy initiative, MediaWise, the travelling exhibit features a timeline of pivotal moments in journalism.