 |
|
|
Your connection to industry & member news | June 4, 2026
|
PALMY Ad Contest entries head off to judgingThanks to everyone who entered the 2026 PALMY Ad Contest!
Entries will head off to Virginia for judging early next week.
Winners will be announced for proofing on June 24, but are not for release until July 17. Best of Show, Best Overall, Designer of the Year and the digital presentation of all winning ads with judges’ comments will be available on July 17.
After winners are announced for proofing, SCPA staffers will reach out to see if you’d like to have a recognition event or if you’d prefer us to mail your awards.
| |
Need ad sales training? Try ‘Earn Your Press Pass' Thanks to funding from the South Carolina Press Association Foundation, newer newspaper ad sales reps can take a free online ad sales training course. This ad sales basic course is a companion to the Earn Your Press Pass journalism training modules that have been available to SCPA members for the past three years.
The newspaper sales training course is a self-guided, fully online course designed to teach a new salesperson all about the ins and outs of newspaper advertising. Users will learn about a variety of topics, including advertising terminology, building relationships, best practices, needs analysis selling, making the sale, ethics and more.
If you have a sales rep who could benefit from this training, please sign up!More upcoming virtual ad training opportunities from Online Media Campus include: Each session will be held from 2-3 p.m. The cost to attend each is $35.
| |
|
“We’re taking our time to verify those facts. We’re taking our time to get things right. We’re taking our time because we write stories for the people, not politicians. Even our decisions not to publish particular stories is based on that premise.”
-- Martin Cahn, editor of the (Camden) Chronicle-Independent
and The (Monroe, NC) Enquirer Journal
| |
 |
By Jon Blau,
The Post and Courier
|
| As a 5-year run sharing Clemson stories ends, it’s only fair you hear mine
CLEMSON — Now that I’m more than a decade into a sports journalism career, I’ve started to enjoy the ways my past, present and future seem to intersect.
I came to The Post and Courier and the Clemson beat after a couple of years covering Indiana athletics for The Herald-Times in Bloomington, Ind., and I geeked out when ex-IU head coach Tom Allen became the Tigers’ defensive coordinator.
Now, I depart The Post and Courier after five years to join The Advocate/Times-Picayune covering LSU football. I’m fully aware the 2026 season opens with Clemson at LSU.
But another connection comes to mind for me: a neurosurgeon with Louisiana roots named Dr. John Ratliff, who is now at Stanford but was stationed at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia when I met him in 2010.
The Tulane grad and former LSU resident looked at an MRI of my spinal cord and the giant tumor inside of it. He asked, “Is this person still walking?”
He was surprised I still was.
At the time, I was an otherwise healthy 24-year-old who had just taken a job at The Saratogian in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., as a sports copy editor. It wasn’t a dream job, but a job nonetheless, a way into an industry that seemed incredibly walled-off when I graduated into the Great Recession in 2008.
By Jon Blau, The Post and Courier | Read more
| |
Meet The People-Sentinel's summer intern
A Missouri college student has joined The People-Sentinel staff for the summer.
Kendall Warren, a rising junior at Missouri Western State University in Saint Joseph, Missouri, was selected for an 8-week summer internship at The People-Sentinel. The internship is partially funded by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.
“We are excited to have Kendall join our team for the summer. She will help our team expand local news coverage while growing digital opportunities, such as Facebook Reels,” said publisher/owner Jonathan Vickery.
Warren, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, said she was interested in the internship because it’s an opportunity to gain new skills through hands-on experience in a real newsroom. It’s also a chance to experience a new community.
“Since the paper is very print-focused, and I love print journalism, I wanted to see what working in that environment is like outside of a school setting. Barnwell County is also much smaller than where I'm from, so I thought it would be interesting to experience what it's like covering news in a small-town community,” said Warren, who started on June 1.
From The People-Sentinel | Read more
| |
Berkeley Independent hosts Donut Day meet-and-greet
The staff of the Berkeley Independent and Summerville Journal Scene will host a meet-and-greet for readers, advertisers and community members on Friday, June 5 from 8-10 a.m. at [their] office, located at 103 Journal Alley in downtown Summerville.
In celebration of National Donut Day, attendees can help themselves to free donuts and fresh coffee or lemonade as they get to know the Summerville Communications team.
From The Berkeley Independent | Read more
| |
Blythewood Town Council passes 1st reading on FOIA ordinance, which lacks consistency with SC law
Members of council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to pass first reading of a proposed ordinance amending the Town’s Freedom of Information (FOI) policy, largely without discussion. Councilwoman Trish Hovis cast the lone vote against approving the ordinance. According to media attorney Jay Bender, long regarded as South Carolina’s foremost authority on the state’s Freedom of Information Act, the ordinance includes a number of provisions inconsistent with state law.
“The town manager and attorney were called out by council for playing games with the FOI law earlier this year, and this proposed ordinance is an effort to obtain approval for future obstruction,” Bender said.
Town Attorney Pete Balthazor, who wrote the amended policy, said it is based largely on a model policy from the Municipal Association of South Carolina and is intended to address concerns surrounding FOIA matters that surfaced several months ago.
But a review of the draft ordinance during the meeting failed to address concerns that arose in December 2025, when Balthazor attempted to charge The Voice $500 for documents the newspaper had requested concerning $20,000 that some council members said was missing. Balthazor said the charge was due to the cost of having a third-party vendor retrieve the documents, that the Town did not have their own server. A copy of the cashed $20,000 check was later obtained by a citizen through an FOI request, revealing that it had been signed by Interim Town Manager (Administrator at that time) Ed Driggers on March 27, 2025—information Driggers did not release until approximately 10 months later. At the March 2026 council meeting, council ordered Driggers and Balthazor to hand over the requested documents to The Voice at no charge.
By Barbara Ball, The Voice of Blythewood & Fairfield County | Read more
| |
Editorial: A win for transparency
If you’ve read our front-page story, you’re aware of recent changes to the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office policy regarding information included in arrest reports.
For years, arrest reports provided to the media included the full address of those arrested. Earlier this year, the sheriff’s office removed that information entirely, leaving only the city of residence. More recently, the agency adopted a compromise: listing the street name while withholding the specific house number.
That’s a balance we can support.
At The Journal, we believe residents deserve meaningful information about what is happening in their communities. People want to know what is occurring in their neighborhoods and on the streets where they live, raise families and build their lives.
At the same time, transparency must be weighed against privacy concerns. Certain crimes — particularly those involving family members, domestic situations or juveniles — can make it easier to identify victims if too much information is released. Protecting victims should remain a priority.
The updated policy recognizes both realities. By providing street names without specific house numbers, the sheriff’s office is preserving public information while reducing the risk of unnecessarily exposing victims or sensitive details.
This approach strikes a reasonable middle ground between public transparency and personal privacy.
From The (Seneca) Journal | Read more
| |
Clemson bypassed 2 internal candidates in presidential pick
CLEMSON — Before Clemson trustees selected Michigan State’s Kevin Guskiewicz to be the university's next president, two internal candidates also made the shortlist, newly released records show.
Both were deans of major colleges at Clemson — third in the university’s leadership hieracrchy behind the president and provost. One was Anand Gramopadhye, who runs the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. The other was Cynthia Young, who heads up the College of Science.
Aside from Guskiewicz, the university did not disclose any candidates who might have applied from other universities. In all, 77 candidates were considered for Clemson’s presidency, a university spokesman shared in an email with the newspaper. ...
Clemson released the three finalist names on May 29, three days after Guskiewicz was chosen in a unanimous vote by trustees. The process did not include naming finalists ahead of time.
Under the S.C. Freedom of Information Act, public bodies must disclose no fewer than three final candidates for a position. The law does not specify when that disclosure must happen. Clemson last named candidates ahead of a presidential pick in 1999 and has since hired two presidents.
Other public institutions have picked up on this closed-door approach — including Coastal Carolina University in 2020 and the University of South Carolina in 2022.
According to the American Association of University Professors, choosing university presidents behind closed doors has become the new normal. Not letting the public know who was in the running makes little sense when that information will come out anyway, said Carol Harrison, the AAUP’s South Carolina leader.
By Anna B. Mitchell, The Post and Courier | Read more
| |
|
|
|
