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Your connection to industry & member news | April 29, 2021
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SCPA Foundation selects 4 summer interns, names 2021 Mundy Scholar
The SCPA Foundation Board met recently and selected the Mundy Scholar and four college students to serve as interns at S.C. newspapers this summer. The Foundation’s internship program provides a meaningful, hands-on training experience for students interested in journalism. Each internship is eight weeks long and pays $4,000.
Here's a little about the students who were selected. In the coming weeks, we'll share more about each student.
Meet the 2021 interns Bryn Smyth - Hubert Osteen Memorial Internship
Bryn Eddy Smyth of Winthrop University will serve as the Hubert Osteen Memorial Intern at The Sumter Item.
Thanks to some generous gifts, the SCPA Foundation has raised the funds needed to offer an 8-week $4,000 internship this summer in memory of Hubert Osteen to be placed at The Sumter Item! We know this will be a great opportunity for Smyth and it is a fitting tribute to Hubert.
Smyth is an English major and educational studies minor
at Winthrop. She was recently hired as the editor-in-chief of The Johnsonian for the 2021-22 school year.
Kailey Cota
Kailey Cota is a journalism major with a double-minor in political science and business administration at the University of South Carolina. She will spend her summer in Columbia interning at The Post and Courier Columbia/Free Times. She is currently the managing editor of USC’s student newspaper, The Daily Gamecock.
Joshua Hardee
Francis Marion University senior Joshua Hardee will spend his summer at the beach working with the staffs of Myrtle Beach Herald and Carolina Forest Chronicle.
Hardee has a double major in mass communication and French.
He has also been involved in his college newspaper, The Patriot, since his first semester. He has worked as both a writer and an editor, and within the last year, he has served as co-editor.
Hannah Wade
Hannah Wade is a third-year print journalism major and Spanish minor at the University of South Carolina. She is interested in both investigative reporting and photojournalism, and will hone her skills at an internship with the Greenville News. As a sophomore, she served as the photo editor for her college newspaper, The Daily Gamecock. She is also currently interning with SC ETV, and is a past student assistant of the S.C. Press Association.
Meet the Mundy ScholarFaith Worrell, a junior visual communications major and art studio minor at the University of South Carolina, has been named this year’s Mundy Scholar. She will receive $1,000 to put toward her education. The Mundy Scholarship is given in memory of R. Frank Mundy, the late publisher of the Index-Journal in Greenwood and the first president of the SCPA Foundation.
Worrell is co-sports editor of The Daily Gamecock and is striving for a career in sports photography and photojournalism.
Invest in the future of our industry
How to apply Internships are open to student journalists who attend a four-year college in South Carolina or reside in South Carolina and attend a four-year college elsewhere. Rising juniors and seniors, and recent college graduates are eligible. Applications for the Mundy Scholarship and 2022 internships will be available in the fall.
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"In today’s climate everything — or so it seems — is labeled left or right, conservative or liberal. Heck, even COVID-19 became and remains a political topic, right along with the available vaccines.
But how is an investigation into how taxpayer money is spent and whether state policies and procedures are followed by a state-supported school either liberal or conservative. In fact, if anything we’d think a person with a conservative bent would appreciate that type of watchdog effort.
If no one investigates allegations of wrongdoing, of cronyism, of potential ethics violations then they go ad nauseam and unchecked."
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| Member Spotlight: John Boyette
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 | John at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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| Executive Editor, Aiken Standard
What do you like best about your job?
That no two days are ever alike. There is always something that pops up or comes at you from out of the blue, and that keeps me on my toes. Before the pandemic curtailed events, I enjoyed getting out in public and talking to readers about what was happening in the community.
What is your proudest career moment?
I’ve been blessed to work with many wonderful people throughout the years. When I was still in college at USC Aiken and later USC, Scott Hunter and the Aiken Standard took a chance on me and I covered many events before I graduated. One of those was the 1986 Masters, and I made the fortunate decision to follow Jack Nicklaus for 18 holes during the final round. He won that day, and my story about that event won first place in the SCPA contest.
What's the most exciting thing going on at your paper?
We have many great things happening here in Aiken, but the push for digital subscriptions is probably the most exciting. We’re taking advantage of technology that can show what stories convert readers into subscribers, and we are challenging our reporters to keep that in mind when covering their beats.
What’s your favorite SCPA member service?
I would say SCPA’s resources when it comes to Freedom of Information. Holding our public officials accountable is an important part of our job, and the SCPA staff is great when we run into questions and issues.
What are some area attractions/restaurants in your community we shouldn’t miss?
Many festivals and events have been canceled, but the main thing we are missing now is the Triple Crown series of equestrian events. Those three events have been a staple of our community for decades and celebrate our horse heritage.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
The Aiken Standard is where I started my career and it’s also where I met my wife. Kathy Morris was working in advertising here when we started dating, and we married in 1991. We both left the newspaper in 1996 but have since returned!
What do you like to do outside of work?
Golf is my favorite hobby/sport, so I try to get out and play once a week at my home course, Palmetto Golf Club. It’s one of the oldest courses in the U.S. and is currently home to three PGA Tour professionals, which isn’t bad for a small community. I’m also a big baseball fan – go Dodgers! – and I like to take in games at different ballparks when I’m in major league cities.
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| "Better View" by Robert Ariail
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|  If you can't get enough of award-winning Camden cartoonist Robert Ariail, enjoy his new strip featured every week in the Charleston City Paper, which has granted us ongoing permission to republish it. Called "Lowcountry," the weekly feature, which is available for syndication in South Carolina newspapers, focuses on politics, human nature, the environment and public policy. More: Contact publisher Andy Brack.
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Hefty fees and missed deadlines: How some agencies still evade SC’s new FOIA law
Nearly four years after South Carolina lawmakers attempted to strengthen the state’s Freedom of Information Act, compliance remains spotty, threatening the public’s access to important public records, The Post and Courier found in a review of Midlands-area agencies.
Months ago, the newspaper sent identical open-records requests to more than two dozen cities, counties, school districts, colleges and state agencies based around Columbia. Each request sought basic information about the spending of public money: a breakdown of each agency’s legal fees since Jan. 1, 2019.
The goal? To track whether each agency met its new deadlines to acknowledge the request and turn over the records — and to see how much they would try to charge the newspaper for them.
By Avery G. Wilks and Adam Benson, The Post and Courier | Read more
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Mauldin officials working to release record on police officer discipline
UPDATE, 3 P.M. April 28: Mauldin City Attorney John Duggan has indicated the city is working to comply with The Greenville News request and release the discipline report.
Original story: City officials in Mauldin are refusing to release a readily available public record about police officer discipline.
The Greenville News first sought the discipline record April 20, after the officer who is the subject of it was discussed during a news conference held by Upstate Black Lives Matter activists.
Activists Derrick Quarles and Bruce Wilson distributed copies of a 2019 reprimand at that news conference, alleging that a police officer used a "racial slur" while at a Mauldin High School football game. Quarles and Wilson have called for the officer's firing.
Quarles and Wilson received a copy of the officer's reprimand months after filing a Freedom of Information request for it, they said. The Greenville News received a copy of the reprimand from the activists and requested the document from the city in order to verify the information. The Greenville News asked for a copy of the document from Mauldin on April 20, in an effort to determine the authenticity of the reprimand record.
The same record that was provided to them should be easily accessible to others, according to South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act.
By Nikie Mayo and Gabe Cavallaro, Greenville News | Read more
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Nameless no more? SC court wades into lottery winner privacy
South Carolina has long been one of a few states where lottery winners can remain anonymous unless they choose to come forward, but that practice is receiving increased scrutiny, thanks to a decision from the state’s highest court.
In an opinion handed down earlier this month, the state Supreme Court sided with a man who filed an open records request with the state Lottery Commission seeking names, contact information, date and jackpot amount for prize winners of a million dollars or more for a 12-month period in 2013 and 2014.
The commission ultimately sued the man, asking a judge to declare that it didn’t have to release the identifying information. The judge agreed, ruling that the release of the winners’ “personal identifying information would constitute an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy” within the meaning of the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act, also prohibiting the man from continuing to seek the information from any source.
Last week, justices sent the case back to a trial court to decide anew, writing that the broad injunction was improper, and that the lower court didn’t have the right to prevent the plaintiff from trying to get the information from a source other than the Lottery Commission.
Throughout the case, the court wrote, the commission “relied heavily on the threat to the safety of lottery winners to support its argument the invasion of a winner’s privacy would be unreasonable,” arguing that winners in the state and elsewhere had been threatened, physically harmed and even scammed after being identified.
But, the court wrote, officials “presented no evidence to support the statements.”
By Meg Kinnard, Associated Press | Read more
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Reporters Committee: Justice Department’s probes into Minneapolis, Louisville police must investigate treatment of press
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 91 media organizations including the S.C. Press Association are urging U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate law enforcement’s treatment of the press as part of the Justice Department’s civil rights probes into the local police departments in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Louisville, Kentucky.
In an April 29 letter to Garland, the media coalition highlighted the dangers journalists in Minneapolis, Louisville and other cities across the country have faced while covering racial justice protests following the police murder of George Floyd. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker confirmed 137 arrests of members of the news media last year, 20 of them in Minneapolis and three in Louisville.
“In many of these cases, contemporaneous recording of the arrest shows that the journalist was indisputably engaged in lawful newsgathering, was compliant with police orders, and was identifiable as a member of the press,” the letter states. “Dozens more reporters were struck by less-lethal weapons, exposed to chemical munitions, or otherwise subjected to unwarranted force.”
By Matt Kristoffersen, RCFP | Read more
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NPO monthly ceases publication
The print edition of the News Post Observer (NPO), a monthly newspaper serving Hemingway and Lake City, has come to an end. The Morning News will still publish in print the Morning News and Pee Dee Weekly covering those areas.
NPO, a regional publication of the Morning News, was born in 2017 when the The Weekly Observer in Hemingway and The Lake City News & Post switched from weekly publications to a combined month edition.
The Lake City News & Post has a long history that is coming to an end. The Lake City News was founded in 1905. The Lake City Post started in 1968. The two papers merged in 1972.
The Weekly Observer was founded in 1973. Mildred Browder-Hughes was the first news editor.
Read more from Matt Tranquill, general manager of the Morning News
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AP Stylebook expands Asian American terms, revises entry on disabilities
On Friday, AP Stylebook Editor Paula Froke shared the latest updates to the Associated Press Stylebook, the grammar and usage guide used by newsrooms around the United States. Froke shared the updates and revisions in a virtual panel at the annual conference for ACES: The Society for Editing.
This year’s updates include expanded entries on terms related to Asian Americans. From a press release:
“Asian, Pacific Islander, AAPI, Stop AAPI Hate and anti-Asian sentiment have all been added to the Stylebook. AP’s previous entry on Asian American now adds that Pacific Islanders should not be described as Asian Americans, Asians or of Asian descent; and that Asian should not be used as shorthand for Asian American when possible.”
By Kristen Hare, Poynter | Read more
Related: The AP and the latest style
If you have a printed copy of the Associated Press Stylebook, even the 2020 edition, you’re out of date. In fact, if you haven’t looked at the AP stylebook online since April 23, you’re already out of date.
At this time of year, the AP usually announces some of its more important style changes at the annual conference of ACES: The Society for Editing. Those changes would often cause a stir, because they would be intended for that year’s print stylebook and would first appear in the online stylebook after the ACES announcement. (Full disclosure: this columnist is a member of the ACES executive committee.)
But, as with so much else these days, things are different. No new AP print edition will appear this year: as AP said last year, it is switching publication of the print book to every other year, and it will not include every entry.
By Merrill Perlman, Columbia Journalism Review | Read more
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Why The New York Times is retiring the term ‘Op-Ed’
The first Op-Ed page in The New York Times greeted the world on Sept. 21, 1970. It was so named because it appeared opposite the editorial page and not (as many still believe) because it would offer views contrary to the paper’s. Inevitably, it would do that, too, since its founders were putting out a welcome mat for ideas and arguments from many points on the political, social and cultural spectrums from outside the walls of The Times — to stimulate thought and provoke discussion of public problems.
That important mission remains the same. But it’s time to change the name. The reason is simple: In the digital world, in which millions of Times readers absorb the paper’s journalism online, there is no geographical “Op-Ed,” just as there is no geographical “Ed” for Op-Ed to be opposite to. It is a relic of an older age and an older print newspaper design.
So now, at age 50, the designation will be retired. Editorials will still be called editorials, but the articles written by outside writers will be known as “Guest Essays,” a title that will appear prominently above the headline.
By Kathleen Kinsbury, The New York Times | Read more
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Why popularity of podcasts is finally turning into revenue for publishers
Publishers and media companies across the United States and beyond have invested significant time and resources into launching and running podcasts in recent years.
For many, building a large audience has not been an issue – in America alone, there are 80 million people who listen to podcasts on a weekly basis, according to Edison Research. But turning this reach into revenue has proved to be a challenge.
The latest forecasts from eMarketer, though, offer some encouragement. This year, the US podcast advertising market is on course to hit $1.3 billion, up nearly 40% from $960 million in 2020, according to figures calculated last month. And the forecasters estimate that total US podcast marketing revenues will top $2 billion by 2023.
By William Turvill, Press Gazette | Read more
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During Covid, journalists were less packaged. Let’s keep it that way
Every Tuesday and Thursday, back around 2002, I would wrap my son in warm clothes and tuck him into a covered car seat. Only his little face would be showing as I’d snap the seat out of its base after arriving at the Centex offices in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to wait in the lobby of the area’s largest homebuilder for an early morning interview with the CEO.
Or my son and I would show up at a construction site or meet developers on a plot of land where trees had recently been clear cut or at a model home. I can’t remember precisely, but Kyle was about 1 year old, give or take a few months.
Not once did he cry during any of our trips or as I conducted an interview. (I don’t think I would have been as lucky a couple years later when my daughter, Lyric, arrived. She was a fussy baby and made her presence known everywhere.) But every day I wondered when my editors would find out about what I had been doing and what they would say if they ever did.
I never told them. And apparently no one called into the newsroom asking why a young journalist was bringing a baby to his interviews. Maybe because I got all my work done on time and well enough on my real estate and housing beat that it raised no suspicions, even though twice a week I wouldn’t show up in the office until well after lunch.
From Nieman Reports | Read more
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By Stephen J. Adler, Editor-In-Chief, Reuters
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| Humility + Transparency + Objectivity = Trusted Journalism.
This week, I’m retiring from Reuters with equal measures of gratitude and pride, and I want to leave you with a few final thoughts—and one handy equation.
For the past decade, I’ve been learning each day in a job that has been both daunting and exhilarating. We’ve worked together to keep our journalists safe and healthy at a time of mounting global peril. We’ve endeavored to maintain rigorous standards around the world, and I’ve marveled at your courage and commitment in embracing them. At the same time, I’ve shared your frustration at the extent to which our profession has increasingly been disdained, disparaged, and—worst of all—mistrusted.
You’ve probably seen this year’s Edelman Trust Barometer: Shockingly, it found that, worldwide, 59% of the public believe journalists intentionally try to mislead people by reporting things they know are false, and that most news organizations are more concerned with supporting a political position than with informing the public. Yes, Reuters is consistently ranked among the most trusted news organizations in the world, and rightly so. But widespread distrust endangers all of us, both as journalists and as citizens.
Without a societal consensus on basic facts, is it any wonder—to cite the most obvious tragic example—that so many people have died because of so many falsehoods about Covid-19? I believe there is a way forward, and I’m summing it up as follows: H + T + O = TJ
…where H is humility, T is transparency, O is objectivity, and TJ is trusted journalism. All three factors, H, T and O, should be givens in any profession—not to mention in any human relationship. But in journalism, for many reasons, they’re often absent—and can even be controversial. Read more
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