The Times is a Gannett daily newspaper based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Its distribution area includes 12 parishes in Northwest Louisiana and three counties in East Texas. Its coverage focuses on issues affecting the Shreveport-Bossier market, and includes investigative reporting, community news, arts and entertainment, government, education, sports, business, and religion, along with local opinion/commentary. Its website provides news updates, videos, photo galleries, forums, blogs, event calendars, entertainment, classifieds, contests, databases, and a regional search engine. Local news content produced by The Times is available on the website at no charge for seven days.

History

Advertisement for Shreveport Times, 1902

From 1895 to 1991, The Times had competition from the afternoon Monday-Saturday daily, the since defunct Shreveport Journal. The papers were later printed at the same 222 Lake Street address and shared opposite sides of the building, but were entirely separate and independent of the other. Publisher Charles T. Beaird, effective March 30, 1991, closed the Shreveport Journal for financial reasons stemming from sharply reduced circulation.^[1] Thereafter, the page opposite the editorial page of The Times, commonly called the op-ed page, was reserved as "The Journal Page" for editorial comment until December 31, 1999.

Beginning in October 2017, The Times was no longer locally published because the distribution center in Shreveport closed to reduce production and labor costs. The Times instead is printed at another Gannett publication, the Longview News-Journal in Longview, Texas, a commute of 65 miles one-way. The Monroe News-Star, which had been published in Shreveport, is printed at the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. The change is not expected to impact delivery schedules.^[2]

Community interaction

Shreveport Times office building on Lake Street in Shreveport

The Times sponsors political debates, economic summits, forums, leadership awards, and other community-oriented initiatives. It also provides community support through Gannett Foundation grants and community partnerships. For more than 30 years, The Times' "Joy Fund" has provided funds to charitable organizations during the holidays through donations provided by readers, with funds exceeding $100,000 annually. In addition, The Times presents the regional Spelling Bee and supports local events including the Red River Revel, Mudbug Madness, the State Fair of Louisiana, and Boutique de Noel. Support is also provided to the Shreveport Symphony, the Opera Guild, Sci-Port, Shreveport Regional Arts Council, Alliance for Education, American Red Cross, Shreveport Green, Community Renewal, Providence House, and United Way of Northwest Louisiana.

Sections

• Main news (first section)
• Local
• Sports
• Classifieds
• Outlook(Sundays)
• Flavor (Wednesdays)
• Arts, culture and entertainment (Thursdays)
• Lagniappe (Home, garden and weekend guide) (Fridays)
• Autos (Saturdays and Sundays)
• Living (Sundays)
• Real Estate (Sundays)
• CareerBuilder (Sundays)
• Business (Sundays)
• Comics + TV Times (Sundays)
• High School Sports (in football season on Fridays and Saturdays)
• LSU section (in football season on Sundays)
• NFL section (in football season on Mondays)

Publications and websites

• The Times daily newspaper
• shreveporttimes.com Online news and information
• LSUBeat.com Online news and information on LSU sports
• Get Healthy new monthly health news
• Red River Moms magazine monthly parenting and child information
• CareerBuilder Weekly weekly employment listings and career advice
• Cars.com NUMBER ONE source for new and used cars in NWLA
• Homefinder Top local real estate section (weekly on Sundays)

Current and former staffers

• Arthur Winton Brown (1908–1916) – secretary-Treasurer and part owner; formerly the mayor of Wellington, New Zealand.
• Preston Allen "Pap" Dean (1915–2011) – editorial cartoonist and inductee of the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame.
• Grits Gresham (1922–2008) – former Times outdoor editor and host of ABC's The American Sportsman television series from 1966–1979.
• Wiley W. Hilburn (1938–2014) – Times columnist ("Fragments") and head of the Louisiana Tech University Journalism Department; inductee of Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame.
• Bill P. Keith (b. 1934) – reported on George W. D'Artois scandal in the middle 1970s; later a Louisiana state senator.
• Harold R. "Hal" King (1945–2010) – suspense novelist who was an investigative reporter at The Times in the 1970s.
• Jim Leslie (1937–1976) – Shreveport Times journalist turned advertising executive; assassinated in Baton Rouge; speculation focused on the late George W. D'Artois as the culprit behind the crime.^[3]
• Henry Langston McEachern (19182004) – chief photographer for nearly four decades until his retirement in 1983; photographed World War II, Elvis Presley, and U.S. Presidents.^[4]
• Rupert Peyton (1899–1982) – Reporter, historian, and state representative from 1932 to 1936.
• Norman L. Richardson (1935–1999) – Former state editor known for coverage of hurricanes of the 1960s.
• George W. Shannon (1914–1998) – Assistant city editor, 1935–1938; editor of Shreveport Journal, 1953–1971.
• Dale Thorn (1943–2014), editor at The Times in the late 1960s, Louisiana State University professor, and press secretary to Governor Edwin Edwards, native of McComb, Mississippi.^[5]
• Stanley R. Tiner (b. 1942) – Former political reporter; executive editor of The Sun Herald in Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi