"A Home Owned Democratic Newspaper"
That Spawned a Modern Media Empire
The
Sullivan Daily Times was founded as a Democrat Party affiliated paper.
They were very clear about where their political loyalties stood.
HOWEVER, they reported the news and left their political opinions to the
Editorial Page, for the most part.
Murray
Briggs started the Sullivan Democrat during the heated era leading up
to the Civil War. He was a staunch supporter of the "Peace Democrats"
(or Copperheads) and of their popular leader US Representative Daniel W
Voorhees of Terre Haute. The radical anti-war organization Knights of
the Golden Circle had a strong presence in Sullivan County, but the
Democrat politicians and the press distanced themselves from the group
(at least publicly). Murray Briggs toned down his anti-Lincoln rhetoric
over the course of the war, but maintained his opposition to the war and
Reconstruction policies.
"The
Sullivan Daily Times was established by Paul Poynter in 1905 as the
daily edition of his weekly newspaper, the Sullivan Democrat. The
Democrat, born in 1854 a year after Sullivan was incorporated as a town,
had been published by its founder Murray Briggs for 42 years."
"In
1897, Poynter, a Putnam County native who just had been graduated from
DePauw College, bought the Democrat from the Briggs estate with money
he’d earned as business manager of the DePauw student newspaper."
"Poynter
was a very active acquirer and originator of newspapers. He bought or
started newspapers in Kokomo, Bedford, Franklin and other Indiana towns.
He ventured to Florida in the first boom and bought the daily newspaper
— the St. Petersburg Times — in the little backwater fishing village
the same day in 1912 that he rolled into town."
"His
son Nelson, who started his career as a lad reporting courthouse news
in Sullivan, later turned the St. Petersburg paper into one of the
most-respected newspapers in America. In time, Paul Poynter’s wife,
Alice Wilkey Poynter, and daughter Eleanor Poynter Jamison acquired the
Times from him. Jamison became general manager in 1933 and served as
publisher from her father’s death in 1950 until 1972."
The
Poynter family sustained a prominent presence in Sullivan County
publishing and politics for nearly 70 years until selling the Times to
Rex E. Pierce in 1972.
The
Poynter Institute for Media Studies continues to serve as a legacy of
the Poynter family. Founded by Nelson Poynter, the Poynter Institute is a
non-profit journalism school and research organization in St.
Petersburg, Florida. Nelson Poynter was born in Sullivan in 1903 and
died in St Petersburg in 1978. The school is the owner of the Tampa Bay
Times newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Network and operates
PolitiFact.
Today
the Poynter organizations no longer acknowledge any
political allegiances to any political parties, and now claim that they
are unbiased arbiters of the FACTS.
