About The Tampa Journal
From the Bay to Your Doorstep
Published online, The Tampa Journal covers Tampa, FL and the four counties of the Tampa Bay area. Hillsborough and Pinellas face each other across the water, linked by the Gandy, the Howard Frankland and the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Pasco and Hernando run north up the Gulf coast. If it changes how the bay area lives or what it pays, we consider it our beat.
What the Journal publishes
Data Desk reports are the backbone. Each takes public data on the four counties and works it into an answer to a practical question: what rent takes out of a paycheck, how a commute across the bay measures up, what storm season does to an insurance bill. Every answer is weighed against Florida, the nation and look-alike counties in other metros.
Among the Special Reports are the county voting guides, which show where the polls are, from Election Day precincts to early-voting locations and mail-ballot drop-offs. They come from each supervisor of elections’ official records and keep updating as early voting goes on. A free weekly newsletter goes out on Sunday morning to anyone who signs up.
What we watch
- County commissions, city councils, school boards and elections
- Paychecks, prices and the employers hiring around the bay
- Homes, rent, property taxes and insurance
- Public schools, the colleges and the University of South Florida
- Bridges, interstates, HART and PSTA buses, the airport and the port
- The bay, the Gulf beaches, the rivers and springs
- Summer heat, afternoon storms and hurricane season
- Crime, the courts and health care
- MacDill Air Force Base and the veterans who call the region home
Who owns the Journal
The Journal belongs to Vector Press, an independent local news company. No chain, no hedge fund, no party or pressure group, and no one outside the newsroom directs what we publish.
Who pays for it
Advertising and reader memberships cover the bills. Advertisers get no vote on what the Journal reports, and their ads are framed apart from the stories so a reader can always tell which is which.
How the reporting works
The short version: public data, taken from the agencies that publish it, worked over by a separate recheck and several reviews, then read by an editor before it runs. The long version, including how stories get picked and how mistakes get fixed, lives in our Editorial Standards.
Get in touch
Tips, complaints, corrections: send them to contactus@thetampajournal.com. Texting works too, at (813) 212-9600. Story ideas are welcome from anywhere between Brooksville and the Skyway.