Nelson Poynter

Notable work and positions

St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times) — Owner and Publisher
Modern Media Institute (now The Poynter Institute) — Founder (1975)
Congressional Quarterly — Co-founder (1945)

Biography

Nelson Poynter (1903–1978) was an American newspaper publisher and media proprietor. Born in Sullivan, Indiana, he graduated from Indiana University in 1925, where he edited the student newspaper, and earned a master's degree in economics from Yale University in 1927. His father, Paul Poynter, had purchased the St. Petersburg Times in 1912; Nelson joined as an editor and general manager in 1938, purchased the paper from his father, and served as its publisher until his death, guiding it to become among the first Southern newspapers to oppose racial segregation. In 1945, he and his first wife, Henrietta, founded Congressional Quarterly, a Washington-based service tracking Congressional votes, which the company later sold to The Economist Group in 2009. In 1975 Poynter founded the Modern Media Institute, a journalism school, naming former Times editor Donald K. Baldwin as its founding president. Upon his death in 1978, his will transferred his controlling interest in the Times Publishing Company to the Institute, ensuring the newspaper's editorial independence from outside ownership; the school was renamed The Poynter Institute for Media Studies in his honor in 1984.