South Yorkshire Times

It was founded in 1877 as the Mexborough & Swinton Times but was renamed the South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times in 1931.

From 1940 it took on several sub-editions, all founded earlier as separate titles: the Rotherham Express (1896), Eckington, Woodhouse and Staveley Express and Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express (both 1897), and the South Elmsall, South Kirkby and Hemsworth Times (1913), which all took an additional South Yorkshire Times and… prefix to their existing titles. In 1965 the sub-editions’ original titles were dropped, and all simply bore the SYT name and the name of the local edition. All the local sub-editions had been dropped by 1995.

It’s published by South Yorkshire Newspapers, a division of Johnston Press, from editorial offices in Mexborough.

It earned praise from the National Union of Journalists in June 2011 for reporting planned strike action by its own reporters on its front page. Editor Jim Oldfield – himself threatened with redundancy – said he was “pleased that the company appear to have had an adult reaction to the story”. The ensuing strike lasted for eight weeks from July to September. The editorship of the Times has now been amalgamated with that of the Doncaster Free Press, Selby Times and Goole Courier. (Oldfield has since moved to the online-only, hyperlocal Postcode Gazette.)

It comes out on Thursdays.