The Herald-Times is a daily newspaper serving Bloomington, Indiana and surrounding areas. The newspaper won the Blue Ribbon Daily award in 1975, 1984 2007,[2] and 2014,[3] naming it the best daily newspaper in the state of Indiana in those years. The newspaper is currently owned by newspaper conglomerate Gannett.
The newspaper is the current incarnation of a business started in 1877, the Bloomington Telephone, named for the new invention. In 1943, the Telephone merged with the Evening World to become the Bloomington World-Telephone. Another paper, the Bloomington Daily Herald, was started in 1947 and three years later those papers merged into the Daily Herald-Telephone.
In 1966, the Schurz family, via their company Schurz Communications, acquired the newspaper from Dagmar Riley.[4] Scott C. Schurz served as its publisher and chief editor from 1966 to 2002.[5] The word Daily was dropped in 1977 and the name changed to the Herald-Times in 1989 while the newspaper switched from an evening publication to a morning publication.[6]
Starting in 1966, the newspaper produced a joint Sunday-only publication with its sister newspaper, the Times-Mail, in neighboring Bedford called the Sunday Herald-Times that was distributed to the expanded readership of both communities. In 2001, the name of the Sunday newspaper was changed to the Hoosier Times and distributed to a much larger area.[7]
Schurz Communications exited the publishing business in January 2019 and sold the newspaper to GateHouse Media,[8][9] which merged with Gannett seven months later.[10] Its building sold to the school district in 2022.[11]
In April 2024, the newspaper switched from carrier to postal delivery.[12]
The Herald-Telephone will change its name to The Herald-Times and be delivered in the morning beginning May 8, Publisher Scott C. Schurz announced today. The Bloomington-based newspaper will expand its coverage area to include Lawrence and Orange counties at that time, and reorganize its sections in an attempt to better serve its readers. The H-T currently serves Monroe, Brown, Greene, Owen and Morgan counties.
Starting Sunday, Jan. 7, the Sunday Herald-Times newspaper will change its name to the Hoosier Times and begin expanded coverage in a regional corridor stretching from the southern edge of Indianapolis to Paoli... Scott Schurz, publisher of The Herald-Times in Bloomington, the Times-Mail in Bedford and The Reporter-Times in Martinsville, said the new newspaper will combine the interests of the existing properties. He said he has always been fond of the name "Hoosier" as a name for citizens of Indiana and thus chose it for the name of the Sunday-only newspaper... The Sunday Herald-Times was launched Sept. 11, 1966, as a joint product serving Bloomington-Bedford area readers.
