History
The paper traces its origins to the West Hillsborough Times, a weekly newspaper established in Dunedin, Florida on the Pinellas peninsula in 1884. At the time, neither St. Petersburg nor Pinellas County existed; the peninsula was part of Hillsborough County. The paper was published weekly in the back of a pharmacy and had a circulation of 480. It subsequently changed ownership six times in seventeen years. In December 1884 it was bought by A.C. Turner, who moved it to Clear Water Harbor (modern Clearwater, Florida). In 1892 it moved to St. Petersburg, and by 1898 it was officially renamed the St. Petersburg Times.
The Times became bi-weekly in 1907, and began publication six days a week in 1912. Indiana Publisher Paul Poynter bought the paper in September 1912 and published it seven days a week, though the paper was rarely financially stable. Paul's son Nelson Poynter became editor in 1939 and took majority control of the paper in 1947, and set about improving the paper's finances and prestige. Nelson Poynter controlled the paper until his death in 1978, when he willed the majority of the stock to the non-profit Poynter Institute. In November 1986, the Evening Independent was merged into the Times. Poynter was succeeded by Eugene Patterson (1978 to 1988), Andrew Barnes (1988 to 2004) and Paul C. Tash (2004 to present).
On January 1, 2012 the St. Petersburg Times was renamed the Tampa Bay Times; this stemmed from a 2006 decision of a lawsuit with Media General, the publishers of The Tampa Tribune, which allowed that paper to keep its exclusive right to use the name of its defunct sister paper, The Tampa Times, for five years after the decision. Free weekday tabloid tbt*, which used "(* Tampa Bay Times)" as its subtitle, became just tbt when the name change took place. The St. Pete Times name was repurposed as a new name for the Times' neighborhood news sections in southern Pinellas County (formerly Neighborhood Times), serving communities from Largo southward.
In 2003, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the St. Petersburg Times as a "usually liberal" newspaper. The Times has also been a longtime opponent to the Church of Scientology, since the church's acquisition of the Fort Harrison Hotel in 1975. The Times has published special reports and series critical of the church and its current leader, David Miscavige. In 2010 the Times published an investigative report questioning the validity of the United States Navy Veterans Association, leading to significant reaction and official investigations into the group nationwide.
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