Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg

The Tampa Bay Times traces its origins to the backroom of a pharmacy in 1884, when the bay area was a sleepy backwater. In those days, only 480 people read the four-page journal. But over the course of the next 50 years, cadres of plucky, adventurous businessmen, including W. L. Straub and Paul Poynter, oversaw an unprecedented expansion in the newspaper’s circulation and prestige as they promoted the region’s booming growth in business and population. Paul’s son, Nelson Poynter, took over as editor in 1939, establishing a reputation for journalistic integrity that led admirers to revere him as a patriot and genius and detractors to denounce him as a muckraker, a communist, or a delirious sleepwalker.

Readers of the Tampa Bay Times witness Nelson Poynter’s legacy for sober, detailed analysis in the pages of today’s publication, which has claimed 12 Pulitzer Prizes—including two in 2016, one in 2014, one in 2013, and two won in 2009, one of which was awarded to its nationally renowned PolitiFact.com fact-checking operation.