The Post and Courier is continuing its goal of providing quality news coverage across the Palmetto State. This includes stationing dedicated journalist in regions that may be news deserts or lack a dedicated news source.  

Our latest expansion project is The Post and Courier Pee Dee, which will be launching May 1.

Our staff of local reporters will provide coverage of news, politics, people and businesses in Florence and the Pee Dee region.

Meet the Staff

CHRIS DAY

Chris Day is managing editor of the Post and Courier’s Pee Dee newsroom. He has more than 40 years of journalism experience at weeklies and dailies in the Midwest, Southwest and South.

During his career, Day has received press association awards for his reporting, opinion writing and photography skills.

Day realized the power of journalism as a fifth-grader in Fort Worth, Texas. He and his mother lived in an apartment complex which had an unfenced swimming pool. One evening, Day and his friends were playing with a Frisbee, and the Frisbee flew over his head and landed by the pool. When he went to pick up the Frisbee he saw the body of a toddler holding the handles of a tricycle in the shallow end. Day and his friends immediately started yelling for help.

One of the residents heard their screams, leapt into the pool, retrieved the child’s body and started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The toddler didn’t survive. Day looked at the Fort Worth newspaper the next day and saw a story about the drowning incident. Soon, the newspaper wrote an editorial demanding the City Council pass an ordinance requiring fences around swimming pools. In the next few weeks, the city passed the ordinance and a fence was installed at the apartment complex pool. In high school, he was a reporter on the student newspaper, received a journalism degree from Oklahoma State University and pursued a journalism career.

 “The drowning was tragic. The newspaper’s editorial and subsequent city ordinance changed lives. Later, I realized I wanted to be a journalist to make a difference in people’s lives,” Day said.

SETH TAYLOR

Seth Taylor is a reporter at the Post and Courier’s Pee Dee newsroom. Taylor comes to the Pee Dee from the Buffalo, Wyoming Bulletin. He also worked for Politifact Iowa.

He received a bachelor’s degree in political science in May 2021 from Grinnell College in Iowa. He was Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper at the college. Taylor got his first taste of journalism during a March 2018 externship at the San Antonio Express-News. He shadowed reporters and was in the newsroom when packages started appearing on Austin, Texas, doorsteps. As soon as someone picked them up, the packages exploded.

“I sat in the newsroom as reports of new bombings arrived. One at a FedEx facility. Another next to the interstate. People yelled from cubicle to cubicle. Some picked up phones – others ran for the door. There was such energy that day, such a feeling of purpose. And there I was, in the middle of it all. That day convinced me. I was committed to journalism.”

TIM MATTHEWS

Tim Matthews is the publisher/digital sales director of the Post and Courier’s Pee Dee newsroom.

Matthews graduated from college in Vermont and immediately started an advertising sales career in the media. He has worked for cable television, broadcast television, radio and newspapers. Matthews has been working in digital ad markets since 2014.

Matthews’ goal as digital sales director is to develop digital marketing plans for small- and medium-sized businesses that includes advertising on digital platforms like Meta, Google, YouTube and others. As the publisher of the Post and Courier’s Pee Dee news operation, Matthews will represent the organization in the community.

“The first thing is to let the folks in the Pee Dee know that we are here and committed,” Matthews said. “Part of my job is to have the pulse of what’s going on as I go around and talk to local business people. I also want to be part of the community by being involved in the Rotary, the chamber and other local organizations.”