Urban Times is a family-owned monthly news magazine covering the Mass Ave Arts and Theatre District and beyond. Urban Times serves as the official neighborhood newsletter for 13 neighborhoods, and is widely distributed in 3 more. We are home-delivered to about 8,000 households in Downtown and the near-Downtown area. Total distribution, counting newsstands: at least 12,000
Bill Brooks is editor and publisher of Urban Times. His career includes editorial management positions at the Crawfordsville Journal-Review, Plainfield Messenger, Mount Vernon Democrat and New Castle Courier-Times. During over 25 years with those newspapers, he earned over two dozen state, regional and national awards in a variety of categories including best sportswriting, best sports column, best editorial writing, best feature writing and best column writing. In 1993, his last year with a traditional newspaper, he and two colleagues won the Associated Press Distinguished Community Service Award, as well as the Kent Cooper Award, the top annual award given to Indiana journalists. He studied journalism at Ball State University, where he also later served as an adjunct faculty member of the School of Journalism. He relocated to Indianapolis in 1994 to handle media relations in a statewide effort to prevent funding cuts to the developmental disabilities community. His freelance career included a weekly column on both the Indiana Pacers and Indianapolis Colts, published in as many as seven central Indiana newspapers. He also served as editor of HoosierISMS Quarterly, a magazine geared to build a statewide following of the Indiana State Museum in advance of the construction of the new museum in White River State Park. He also handled many reporting assignments for the Indiana State Bar Association. Urban Times grew out of The Lockerbie Letter, which Bill edited and produced from 1996 to 2005 before creating the multi-neighborhood newsmagazine that is Urban Times.