The Tampa Bay Times is the largest newspaper in Florida, with a rich, award-winning history of investigative, narrative and enterprise journalism. We have 150 journalists covering four counties and the state of Florida. That includes reporters and editors across news, investigations, enterprise, features, sports and digital. Ambition runs deep for us. In the past year alone, our reporters uncovered a pattern at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, where children were dying at an alarming rate inside the hospital’s heart institute. Our reporters also found a cemetery in Tampa for black men, women and children that time and development forgot. Residents living in buildings on top of that lost cemetery are being relocated and a community is trying to heal. Our ownership structure is unique in journalism, preserved by our late visionary owner, Nelson Poynter. He bequeathed the newspaper to a school for journalists here in St. Petersburg, now known as the Poynter Institute, to protect our independence. We take that independence very seriously, focusing our resources on distinct, exceptional reporting. Our mission as a news organization traces back to our founding in 1884: to report the truth and contribute to an informed society. That mission depends on maintaining our credibility within the community. Poynter said it best in 1961: “When we turn to history we can draw inspiration from those who risked their necks and their economic lives to keep the free press free. Every year newspapers are cited for Pulitzer prizes and other awards in recognition of spectacular crusades and courage. But we have an even greater daily triumph of American journalism in helping to fulfill less spectacular but imperative needs. Without these self-government cannot endure.”
Tampa Bay Times
