Gregory Yee, a former Post and Courier reporter who brought verve and compassion to breaking news coverage, died Jan. 4 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 33.
Yee died unexpectedly due to complications from a respiratory issue, his family told The Los Angeles Times, where he worked as a reporter.
The Los Angeles native graduated in 2012 from UC Irvine, where he served as editor in chief for the student newspaper, The New University. Yee held a couple of news jobs on the West Coast before picking up and moving to Charleston in 2016 to cover breaking news and criminal justice at The Post and Courier.
Here, Yee covered an assortment of issues — gun violence, extreme weather, clowns — with enthusiasm and composure.
Yee brought attention to deplorable living conditions — cockroaches, rats, mice and dust — in Floyd Manor, a public housing building on the upper Charleston peninsula for senior citizens and people with disabilities, forcing public officials to invest in Charleston's vulnerable residents.
He documented with precision and empathy how racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 devolved into rioting in South Carolina's oldest city.
He led the newspaper's coverage of an April 2021 mass shooting in Rock Hill by a former NFL player that sent shockwaves through the town. Within the span of a news cycle, Yee and a team of reporters tried to provide answers amid chaos and elevate voices of people hit hardest by the violence.
He left the newspaper in the summer of 2021 for The Los Angeles Times, which offered him an opportunity to break the news that shaped his hometown.
Yee was a pillar of The Post and Courier's community of reporters both in and out of the newsroom.
Current and former reporters at the newspaper remembered his powerful laugh, gentle nature and ability to bring people together over a home-cooked meal.
Deanna Pan, now a reporter at The Boston Globe, recalled how the energy in the newsroom shifted when Yee arrived to work the night shift.
"A joke from Greg, or a burst of his laughter, could unbind whatever tedium and drudgery mired us," she said. "He reminded us why we do the work that we do because he showed us every day the depth of love humans are capable of.”
"Greg was endlessly generous with his time, his spirit and his talents," said Thad Moore, an investigative reporter for the newspaper. "His empathy and thoughtfulness infused his reporting and his friendships. His enthusiasm, energy and laugh made this newsroom special for a generation of us."
Thomas Novelly, who worked with Yee in Charleston and now reports for military.com, was reminded of a professional axiom: human first, journalist second.
"Greg never had to be reminded of that. He knew how to perfectly balance those two roles," Novelly said. "He was a dedicated journalist whose relentless pursuit of stories never hindered him from being a dedicated friend to everyone in the newsroom. He was a rare breed and he’ll be missed."
Former digital editor Brooks Brunson remembers meeting Yee in 2016 on Yee’s first day of work at The Post and Courier.
The California man was hard to miss.
“He had on a Hawaiian shirt and he at that time had really long hair and he had this big bun on top of his head,” Brunson said.
They quickly became close friends, bonding over Yerba mate tea and working late nights. Eventually, they moved in together with another reporter in a house in Wagener Terrace, where Yee cooked breakfast every morning.
“One of the heartbreaking things is I’ll never have a Greg meal again,” said Brunson, who is Head Audience Editor of New York Public Radio's WNYC.
In addition to grilling for his friends, she added, Yee read poetry, drove a stick shift, spoke fluent Spanish and played the saxophone.
Yee's father told the L.A. Times of his son's inquisitiveness.
“He was always curious about everything,” Andrew Yee told The Times. “I take comfort in knowing Gregory came back to L.A. and was thriving at the paper. He said he felt like (journalism) was a calling, like it’s in his genes to do it.”
Yee is survived by his parents and two sisters.
