[ed. note: The St. Petersburg Times changed its name to the Tampa Bay Times effective Jan. 1, 2012]
Press Release from POLITICO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 23, 2011

ARLINGTON, Va. – POLITICO and the St. Petersburg Times announced today a robust partnership for the presidential election season culminating with an unrivaled, co-branded presence at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

"We are thrilled to pair up with one of America's most prestigious newspapers,” said POLITICO Executive Editor Jim VandeHei. “This will allow both organizations to play to their core strengths – POLITICO's national political coverage and the St. Petersburg Times's dominance of state and local politics – to provide readers a compelling way to navigate and understand the GOP convention."
The partnership will begin immediately as POLITICO and the Times plan to share content in print and online in order to offer readers added insight into the campaign trail. At the convention, they’ll combine reporting efforts to write in-depth enterprise stories related to the August 2012 event. In addition, POLITICO and the Times plan to co-produce daily newsmaker events in the Tampa area.
During convention week, the Times’s front-page print nameplate will be co-branded with POLITICO’s logo. Modeled after POLITICO’s innovative convention partnerships with The Denver Post and the St. Paul Pioneer Press during the 2008 election cycle, the newspaper will include reporting from both outlets as well as local and national advertising. It will be distributed at key locations around the convention city, drawing readership from local residents and influential convention-goers alike.

“The St. Petersburg Times is excited to join forces with POLITICO in creating a journalistic powerhouse that will chronicle the Republican Party’s march to Tampa in 2012,” Times Editor Neil Brown said. “As the state’s leading news organization, we are honored to work with POLITICO, which has become the signature name in covering the national political scene. The history-making GOP convention in Tampa will generate great journalistic and business opportunities and we know this partnership will help us capitalize on all of it.”

POLITICO and the Times also plan to co-brand the headers of their respective websites during the week of the convention and POLITICO plans to create co-branded Florida and convention pages on its popular 2012 LIVE online section beforehand.

Finally, POLITICO will feature “Truth-O-Meter” analysis from PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning website owned by the Times, online and in print, and later work with the organization to fact-check campaign speeches.

ABOUT POLITICO
POLITICO is a nonpartisan, Washington-based political journalism organization that serves as the one- stop shop for the fastest, deepest coverage of the president, Congress and the 2012 presidential race. POLITICO’s journalists break news and drive conversation about the White House, Capitol Hill and Washington lobbying, plus the intersection of politics with Wall Street, the media and personalities.

ABOUT THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES AND TAMPABAY.COM
The St. Petersburg Times is widely considered one of the Top Ten newspapers in America. The Times has won eight Pulitzer Prizes. It is Florida’s largest newspaper with an average circulation of 429,048 Sunday and 292,441 daily (ABC FAS-FAX March 2011). The Times is produced by the Times Publishing Company, which also publishes TampaBay.com - Tampa Bay’s largest local news website with more than 1.6 million unique visitors each month (Nielsen NetView three-month average for 01/11-03/11). Additionally, the company publishes the free daily tbt* Tampa Bay Times and the Pulitzer Prize-winning website, PolitiFact.com; and produces special events, specialty publications and targeted advertising programs.

CONTACT:
Sara Olson