History
The Standard-Times formed from the 1934 merger of The New Bedford Standard and The New Bedford Times. The Standard had been in operation since being founded as an evening newspaper in 1850.
The use of "Mr.," "Mrs.," "Ms." and "Miss" before the last names of people cited in the newspaper, still in use in sections other than sports at the start of 2007, is the legacy of longtime Standard-Times editor James M. Ragsdale, who died in 1994. Ragsdale was also credited with publishing drug and prostitution cases separately from other court news, in running features called Drug Watch and Prostitution Watch. The features included photos of drug and prostitution suspects taken during arraignment and published before their cases were adjudicated.
The front-page nameplate of The Standard Times relegates its home city's name to small print, but trumpets a regional identity, "Serving the SouthCoast Community." It was The Standard-Times under Editor-In-Chief Ken Hartnett, that in the 1990s most loudly championed the name South Coast to describe the Fall River-New Bedford metropolitan area. This has been hailed as civic-mindedness by some, and scorned as pointless sloganeering by others, especially longtime residents, including several writers of letters to The Standard Times opinion pages. The first area business to adopt the term was Foxy Lady Southcoast, a notorious New Bedford strip club that was forced to discontinue use of its prior name, Norma Jean's, after a series of Standard-Times stories claimed the name infringed on the estate of Marilyn Monroe.
Publisher William T. Kennedy came under fire for New Bedford boosterism again in the 2000s (decade), as critics alleged that his support for building a multi-million dollar aquarium—he served on the board of directors for the waterfront "Oceanarium" -- was skewing The Standard-Times' coverage of cost overruns and delays.
Read more about this topic: The Standard-Times (New Bedford)
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