The Poynter Institute

St. Petersburg, Florida

by Andrew Checchia

Training center, publishing house

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a journalism school. It also owns the Times Publishing Company, which publishes the metro daily newspaper the Tampa Bay Times. Various other services are offered by the institute, including fact-checking and media literacy programs. “We are first and foremost a school for journalists,” said Aaron Sharockman, the Vice President of Sales and Strategic Partnerships at Poynter. “That’s always been the hallmark of what Poynter is.”

Poynter offers courses on writing, editing, ethics, fact-checking, broadcast and visual journalism, and leadership. These classes come in different mediums, including webinars, self-guided online courses, and in-person sessions at the nonprofit’s St. Petersburg campus. Faculty also offer private, customized courses of study.

The institute is not an accredited institution, and the courses are not part of a degree-bearing program, as might be offered by a journalism school affiliated with a university. It offers some professional certifications, including an ACES introductory editing certificate. Nonetheless, Poynter is the most prominent of a small group of independent continuing education providers in the American news industry.

News and research

Poynter’s website hosts a news journal with up-to-date reporting and commentary on the news business and related concerns. Typical articles include reports on changes and layoffs at major outlets, and the emergence of local non-profit newspapers across the country. These news stories run alongside opinion pieces advocating for trustworthy journalism or calling out corporate influence in the press. The website also features a job board and resume-crafting guide for news professionals.

In its research, Poynter optimistically characterizes both the state of the journalism industry and its role within it, running something of a counternarrative to widespread negative assessments of the news business. This is summarized in OnPoynt, a report on the news industry in the summer of 2024. “There is a great deal of disruption in the news industry for a number of different reasons, but the report also finds that people are very much still interested in news,” said Sharockman, who is credited as a writer, editor, and researcher on the report. “They may just not want to consume it in the ways journalists have traditionally been delivering it.” Poynter’s place in the industry is further described in the 2023-24 Poynter Impact Report.

The institute employs 81 listed staff members. It is led by president Neil Brown, who also serves on the 12-person board of trustees. Brown left his role as an editor and vice president at the Tampa Bay Times in 2017 to take over leadership at Poynter. He also served on the Pulitzer Prize board from 2015 to 2024. The board chair is Paul C. Tash, CEO of Times Publishing Company.

Poynter was founded in 1975 as the nonprofit Modern Media Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, to provide courses for working journalists to improve their skills. Founder Nelson Poynter was president of the Times Publishing Company, where he had been editor of St. Petersburg Times, predecessor of Tampa Bay Times, under his father, Paul Poynter. “Modern Media Institute is going to be something big and important,” Nelson Poynter said at the time of its founding. “It has to live modestly for quite a number of years, but its job is to help train the people who are going to help maintain the integrity, the stability, the progress of self-government.”