Tampa Bay Times

The Tampa Bay Times, called the St. Petersburg Times until 2011, is an American metro daily newspaper based in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, a subsidiary of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. It has won 14 Pulitzer Prizes. 

The Tampa Bay Times covers a full array of news topics, including politics, business, statewide news, national affairs, foreign affairs, crime, sports, arts, and food. The newspaper is the state's largest by circulation, narrowly beating the Miami Herald. It claims to employ the largest investigative news team in Florida. 

Once a swing state with a mix of left- and right-leaning voters, Florida, as a state, and Tampa Bay, as a region, have inched steadily rightward in the 21st century. “It has become more conservative, and the newspaper’s reflecting that,” said a longtime St. Petersburg resident and former social causes attorney, who has been reading the paper since 1978. “I think the quality is the same, but the approach is different.”

A.C. Turner acquired the West Hillsborough Times in 1898 and renamed it the St. Petersburg Times. In 1912, Paul Poynter purchased the paper and transitioned it from bi-weekly to daily publishing. His son Nelson Poynter joined the organization in the 1930s and eventually took over the executive reins. In 2012, the paper rebranded itself as the Tampa Bay Times.

In 2016, the Times acquired the Tampa Tribune, expanding its reach eastward from Tampa and St. Petersburg into cities like Lakeland in Polk County. This merger ended the two papers’ decades-long competition. With the expanded reach, the paper now competes with inland outlets like the Lakeland Ledger, the Polk County Democrat, and papers in Highlands County. “I think it was a big moment simply because the two papers were different,” added the attorney. “Honestly, it probably has helped bring the area together.”

In July 2020, the Times received $8.5 million in federal loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), as part of economic relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s struggling employee pension plan was taken over in December 2021 by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. In August 2024, the newspaper offered buyouts to over 100 of its then nearly 300-person newsroom, looking to downsize the paper by 20 percent.