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Your connection to industry & member news | Aug. 14, 2025
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 | SCPA Foundation intern Cassie Cornwell joined SCPA President Harry Logan and SCPA staff for lunch this week to talk about her summer internship and career goals.
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| SCPA Foundation intern has career-defining summer at P&C Columbia newsroom
Editor's Note: As the summer comes to a close, so does the SCPA Foundation's internship program.
By Cassie Cornwell
Senior Journalism major, USC
I spent this summer interning at The Post and Courier Columbia. I wrote many different types of stories and was truly able to get experience in a lot of different areas. I did things like writing about an endangered bird returning to Lexington County as well as stories about the oldest church congregation in Columbia and so much more.
I learned so much with my time at The Post and Courier this summer. I greatly appreciated how I was treated by my editors and the other reporters. They truly brought me in and treated me just like they did everyone else. Everyone was so willing to collaborate with me and help out if I needed it. One of my first stories was a collaboration with one of the State House reporters Anna Wilder and she was great to work with and was so helpful.
I am so grateful for all the connections I was able to make, and I feel like I was able to learn so much in just a few weeks. I loved the way that my editors trusted that I could do what they asked me to do. They trusted that if I needed help, I would ask, and they didn’t treat me like I didn’t know what I was doing.
I wrote over 30 stories during my eight weeks and I’m proud of all that I was able to get published. I loved getting to meet people and tell their stories, like a little girl named Zayne and a South Carolina journalist and author. I am grateful for all that I was able to do and that I was able to get the chance to improve my writing and reporting skills.
Invest in the future of our industry
How to apply
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SCNN payouts return nearly $30,000 to SCPA member papers S.C. Newspaper Network (SCNN), the sales arm of SCPA, mailed quarterly advertising network payments totaling $29,887 to SCPA member newspapers this week.
These totals include payouts for the Small Space Display (2x2/2x4/2x6) Advertising Network and the QuarterPage+ Ad Network. Classified revenue is paid out annually in January.
“A big thanks to all of the member papers that participate in our ad networks,” said Randall Savely, Co-Executive Director of SCPA and SCNN. “The networks are vital to the operations of SCPA and also a great source of added revenue for member papers.”
Every daily newspaper and virtually every weekly newspaper participates in SCNN's ad networks. If your newspaper does not participate in one of the SCNN networks, contact Randall to learn how these networks can provide added revenue to your newspaper.
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By Eric P. Robinson, USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications
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The media law case the U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear, and the troubling reason whyIt is hard to get the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case. Only certain cases—mostly those involving federal law, or a constitutional provision—are even eligible, and then the Court grants review— certiorari—in only about 60 of the roughly 8,000 petitions it receives each year, or just about 0.75 percent. Note that these are cases that are argued and decided on their “merits,” the legal arguments and issues in each case.
Separately, the Court has increasingly been ruling on cases at preliminary stages, without considering the legal issues at stake. This is known as the Court’s “shadow docket,” and has been subject to increasing criticism, including from some of the justices.
But an appeal of a decision issued in January by the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rescinding the Federal Communication Commission’s repeal of “net neutrality” rules will not be one of the cases that the U.S. Supreme Court will consider. But this is not because the Court denied review. Instead, the groups who brought the case challenging the FCC’s repeal have decided not to seek review from the nation’s highest court, based on the rationale that it would be futile. Matt Wood, vice president of policy and general counsel at one of these groups, Free Press, said that “[t]he justices making up the current Supreme Court majority have shown hostility toward sound legal reasoning on this precise question and a host of other topics too.”
In other words, the net neutrality advocates are sure that even if their petition for certiorari were successful and the Supreme Court heard their case, they would lose.
And they may be right. The Sixth Circuit decision was based on a June 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a 40-year-old precedent and now makes it easier to challenge rules adopted by federal government agencies, including the FCC. Under the 2024 precedent, the Sixth Circuit explained, “we no longer afford deference to the FCC's reading of the statute” that led the agency to adopt the net neutrality requirement. Read more
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|  SCPA traveled to Sumter Tuesday morning to present PALMY Awards to the design and sales teams of The Sumter Item, The Lexington County Chronicle and The Bluffton Sun. The newspapers won 14 awards in the 2025 PALMY Contest, including a Best of Show to Janel Przybyla and Mark Pekuri of The Sumter Item.
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Back to School We're starting to see some great back-to-school coverage! If you'd like to add your news organization's Back to School pages, galleries or stories, please email us.
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Hyde wins national columnist award
Paul Hyde, contributing columnist for the South Carolina Daily Gazette, recently won a third place award in the National Society of Newspaper Columnists social justice category.
Hyde is a longtime journalist and teacher in the Upstate. He worked 18 years for the Greenville News as a columnist, editorial writer, education reporter and arts writer. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Clemson and Harvard universities. He has written for the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and USA Today, among other publications. He currently is a regular contributor to the Greenville Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Classical Voice North America.
SCPA members may republish S.C. Daily Gazette content online or in print under Creative Commons license.
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The Post and Courier partners with universities to offer 33 paid internships
This August The Post and Courier is onboarding 33 fully funded, paid interns who will work in P&C offices across the state. The Post and Courier has joined forces with six institutions of higher education to build a pipeline of future journalists, marketing professionals and advertising experts through our University Partnerships program.
The participating schools are:
- Francis Marion University
- The Technical College of the Lowcountry
- University of South Carolina
- University of South Carolina Beaufort
- Winthrop University
- Wofford College
These positions are funded by generous foundations and individuals committed to sustaining a free press in South Carolina. Many of the students will work alongside our staff in campus-based offices, and most will receive college credit in addition to being paid.
To learn more about the University Partnerships program, please contact Robie Scott.
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SC pipeline route surfaces after months of secrecy. Environmental concerns rise
A map obtained by conservationists shows that a new natural gas pipeline will cut through an area of swamps and rivers that has been targeted in South Carolina for protection in recent decades.
The area includes undeveloped property that would someday become part of the ACE Basin, a nationally acclaimed nature preserve that has been the focus of state and private efforts to save the landscape as development pressures mount in South Carolina. It’s possible the pipeline also could touch already protected lands, although the map was not detailed enough to show that.
State utilities and pipeline companies have declined for months to release the route for the pipeline, which would serve a huge natural gas plant in the Canadys community of Colleton County. A pipeline company confirmed Tuesday the authenticity of the map obtained by conservationists. …
“It’s extremely frustrating that basic information about this pipeline and the proposed gas plant at Canadys has been kept secret from the public for this long,’’ according to a statement from the Southern Environmental Law Center’s climate associate Robbie Maynor.
Maynor said “regular people’’ have been left in the dark about a project that could pollute their air and affect their property.
“South Carolinians deserve to know the basic details about major projects like this that could have lasting impacts on our land, our waterways, our health, and our wallets,’’ the statement said.
By Sammy Fretwell, The State | Read more
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City of Beaufort makes huge FOIA gaffe
In the process of fulfilling a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a citizen on July 29, the City of Beaufort mistakenly released information it was not required to release and that it should not have produced, potentially compromising the personal information and privacy of numerous individuals and causing the City to re-evaluate how it handles requests for information.
When Autumn Hollis submitted a FOIA request to the City of Beaufort in May, she and her husband, Kiel, were hoping to learn more about how the Beaufort Police Department handled the case of their daughter Emily and others like it.
The Hollis family contends their then-12-year-old daughter was a victim of human trafficking in February, while the Beaufort Police maintained initially that she was a runaway and now says any trafficking took place outside its jurisdiction.
When the Hollis family received the documents fulfilling their request from the City, they were stunned. In more than 9,000 pages of emails, not including attachments, of which there are many, almost nothing is redacted.
In addition to hundreds of pages of documents pertaining specifically to the Hollis case – surprisingly including their daughter’s full forensic examination, recorded as part of the sexual assault investigation and usually released only after a court order — there are thousands that are totally unrelated. And it’s what’s in those documents that may be more concerning.
By Mike McCombs, The Island News | Read more
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State press association attorney weighs in on Mayesville's FOIA lawsuit
Mayesville's ongoing legal battle over public records has drawn scrutiny not only from the courts but also from legal and government experts questioning the town council's recent conduct.
As the town continues to withhold records requested in a Freedom of Information Act inquiry, Jay Bender, attorney for South Carolina Press Association, speculated the town may be edging toward contempt and further raised concerns about its collaboration with a nonprofit over access to public money and an allegedly unlawful meeting procedure.
These issues all came to a head at the town's special-called meeting on Tuesday, July 29, where council excluded Mayor Christopher Brown from executive session, citing a "conflict of interest" pertaining to the ongoing FOIA lawsuit filed by Louis Tisdale against the town.
Court documents obtained by The Sumter Item state Tisdale hand-delivered a written FOIA request to the Town of Mayesville on Nov. 28, 2023, requesting 13 financial documents, including the town's approved budget for fiscal years 2021-22 and 2022-23; number of employees of the town and its Community Development Corporation, spearheaded by Ed Miller, husband of former Mayesville Mayor Jereleen Miller; positional budgeted salaries; annual salaries for the mayor and each council member; annual certified audits from the past three fiscal years; any actions taken by council regarding the CDC financially or as it relates to the charter and governance of the CDC; and any rental agreements between the town and CDC.
The request was partially fulfilled on July 7 - more than a year since the request was initially filed - after a Sumter judge ordered the town to release the records. State Rep. Spencer Wetmore (D-Charleston), who is representing Tisdale, told The Item seven of the requested documents - three of which were retrieved from "secret" filing cabinets in the town's office - were handed over only after Town Clerk/Treasurer Taurice Collins was pressed.
By Alaysha Maple, The Sumter Item | Read more
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Beaufort releases exempt records by mistake, but details remain unclear
The City of Beaufort acknowledged that they accidentally released “exempt” information to an individual who submitted a public records request.
The information was “exempt from disclosure and should not have been produced,” according to a Tuesday press release, and the city is continuing to assess if and how far the information was spread after staff “immediately” removed the recipient’s access to the affected files.
Questions about the nature of the released information — and if or how widely the information was shared — could not be answered by the city’s public information officer, Ashley Brandon. She “was not at liberty” to disclose the city’s process of ensuring the information was not circulated further. Brandon emphasized that the release was not intentional, and that the error was made due to a software issue.
The release took place before the city launched a new public records management platform last week, said Brandon. The system reduces “the likelihood of future disclosure errors,” according to the press release.
By Chloe Appleby, The Island Packet | Read more
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Editorial: Mount Pleasant discussion might have been legal, but it was still a betrayal
Mount Pleasant Town Council members likely comforted themselves last week with the belief that they complied with the state's Freedom of Information Act, when, after meeting privately with town lawyers and transportation staff for almost 45 minutes, they took a public vote to urge their attorney to "proceed as discussed in executive session."
And council might well have complied with the law — but only on a technicality. And it certainly violated the public's trust.
State law allows public bodies to meet in executive session to receive legal advice under certain circumstances that are far too easy to exploit — and this might have been one of those well-exploited circumstances. State law also prohibits public bodies from taking votes in executive session; any action must be taken in open session, along with an explanation of the action. Unspecified action "as discussed in executive session" hardly meets the requirement. The technicality that makes the vote possibly legal is that depending on what the attorney was directed to do, it's not clear any vote was needed. In other words, the whole thing could have been for show, to assure voters that the council was doing something.
Although there's something offensive about a council going through such a charade, the bigger problem is that South Carolina's anemic Freedom of Information Act even allows such discussions to be held behind closed doors.
It's one thing for a government to get legal advice in private when its attorney is trying to negotiate the best deal with a property owner whose land it wants to purchase. It's quite another matter when the attorney is advising the council on how to handle what might become a legal dispute with another government over a matter of public policy.
From The Post and Courier | Read more
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Tips for funding reporting beats from The Post and Courier
In 2021, The Post and Courier set a goal to raise $100,000 in 100 days to support its “Uncovered” investigative project, which reported corruption and misconduct in South Carolina. Readers responded by meeting the goal in less than a month.
“That was a realization of the importance of what we mean to readers, beyond them subscribing to the paper,” The Post and Courier’s president and publisher, P.J. Browning, said. “The value of our journalism is just incredible, and we should never underestimate that.”
Overall, The Post and Courier raised about $500,000. The funding helped offset costs such as FOIA request fees and travel expenses for reporters, and supported reporting collaborations with 18 community newspapers across the state.
Browning recalled early conversations with collaborators, when The Post and Courier asked fellow journalists at community newspapers: What’s that story you would tell if you had the resources to tell it?
This same approach of curiosity and working toward a clear vision has helped The Post and Courier raise at least $5.2 million in donations and funds from philanthropy since the 2021 challenge.
Funded coverage now supports 13 dedicated staff positions across several multiyear projects: an Education Lab, the Rising Waters Lab for climate stories and more investigations serving the public interest.
By Jan Ross P. Sakian, American Press Institute | Read more
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FAA releases drone rulemaking
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). The deadline for public comments is October 6, 2025. The NPRM would create special requirements for newsrooms looking to fly BVLOS missions. It would require applications for shorter-term “permits” and longer-term “certificates,” the latter of which imposes stricter reporting requirements to the FAA.
From News/Media Alliance | Read more
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Apply for local business journalism fellowship by Aug. 18
Running a business has never been easy, but in 2025, entrepreneurs face a landscape that’s more complex, competitive, and fast-changing than ever. While small businesses remain the backbone of the U.S. economy – employing nearly half of the country’s workforce – they are navigating a host of challenges that threaten their growth and survival.
To help journalists covering business in their communities, the National Press Foundation is creating four days of exclusive briefings with economists, small business owners and other top experts to dive into the business infrastructure across America today and what policies and practices fuel stability and innovative growth for companies large and small.
Apply to NPF’s Local Business Journalism Fellowship, scheduled for September 15-18, 2025 in Washington, D.C., by Aug. 18. Learn more and apply here.
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The local news dilemma: Adapt to platforms or risk irrelevance
In a historic shift, more Americans now say they get their news from social media and video platforms than from television, according to the Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report. The annual report surveyed news habits in 47 countries this year and found 54% of U.S. adults turned to social or video platforms for news in the previous week, compared to 50% who used TV and 48% who accessed news via websites or apps.
This tipping point reflects an accelerating change in how Americans, particularly younger generations, consume news. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, more than half now rely primarily on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram to stay informed, turning to short videos, creators and algorithm-driven content instead of traditional news outlets.
“This isn’t a new trend; it’s the continuation of one that’s been building for years,” said Samantha Ragland, interim executive director and VP of journalism programs at the American Press Institute. “Younger generations — Gen Z and others — are getting more and more of their news from digital and social channels. They prefer audio and video over print or text. The big question is what will newsrooms do?”
By Diane Sylvester for E&P Magazine | Read more
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12 tips to amp your housing coverage: In every front, the US housing market is getting worse. These story ideas are doable.
Like the Bob Dylan song says, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. The perfect storm that is the U.S. housing market is battering Americans from coast to coast.
The rent is too damn high. Or if you like the technical term, a record 50% of renters are cost-burdened, with half of them spending over 50% of their income on rent and utilities.
Buying a home is an impossible dream for millions. With prices rising faster than incomes, it takes five times the median household income to meet the price of the typical home. For decades, a threefold gap was considered manageable.
A record number of people are homeless; over 770,000, a third more than five years ago.
The latest State of the Nation’s Housing from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies documents all of this. The results are not news so much as an affirmation of a stubborn epic fail. No wonder that nearly half of Americans say the cost of housing is a major source of stress in their lives.
And that captures both the opportunity and a major obstacle for newsrooms. In one way or another, this pain touches virtually everyone who reads, sees or hears our work. On the flip side, the sheer familiarity of the problem makes it harder to catch people’s attention.
By Jon Greenberg, Poynter | Read more
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