Here's a story that I wrote and that I got published in the November 2009 edition of Publishers' Auxiliary, a journalism trade publication. The photos accompanying this blog post are of editor Charles Perry and embattled Horry County (S.C.) Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland--both of whom I mention in my story:By Larry Timbs
Special to Publishers’ AuxiliaryEven if the staff at your community weekly newspaper is small and your resources aren’t anything close to that of your competitors, don’t rule out doing investigative reporting.
Because sometimes you get lucky, like the 6,500-weekly circulation Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Herald did in September, and you break a really big story.
As in being the first newspaper in your circulation area, which includes the McClatchy-owned 52,000-circulation daily Sun-News, to discover and report that the chairwoman of your county council owes the state ethics commission a whopping $300,000-plus in fines.
Myrtle Beach Herald editor Charles Perry said he was stunned that when looking for one piece of information he stumbled upon something much juicier.
Call it a classic case of journalism serendipity or call it whatever you want—luck, providence, skill, hard work—but it paid off for Perry big time.
While Perry combed the Internet for information about a local city council candidate’s ethics fines, he noticed another familiar name on the ethics debtors list—that of
Horry County (S.C.) Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland.And not only was Gilland on the debtors list, she was on it big time—owing the state ethics commission more than $300,000 for not filing 11 campaign disclosure forms. Plus, the fines were mounting daily for each day she didn’t pay.
Perry, 28, editor of the Myrtle Beach Herald since late April 2009, couldn’t believe what he had found, but there it was plain as day: One of the most powerful political figures in Horry County owed the state ethics commission a huge sum of money, and no one seemed to know about it, and, if they did, they were mum.
His blood pumping and heart racing, Perry recalls that he couldn’t write the story fast enough.
But write it he did, breaking the story online and putting it on the newspaper’s Facebook page.
A few hours later, that same evening in September, the Myrtle Beach Herald’s TV news partner, WMBF News, was all over the story, as were other news media in Horry County and elsewhere in South Carolina.
But the little guy on the block—The Myrtle Beach Herald—got the ball rolling.
The Myrtle Beach Herald, one of four weekly newspapers owned by Waccamaw Publishers, has an editor (Perry), a copyeditor and two part-time reporters, along with a few occasional freelancers.
But it’s a fearless, hard-working, community-minded newspaper that will doggedly pursue just about any story, according to Perry.
That kind of stick-to-it-ness pays big dividends, he said.
“(L)ately our work has set us apart,” Perry wrote in a recent column about the Liz Gilland blockbuster story. “In the barrage of TV news reports about County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland’s ethics fines, you probably didn’t hear our name mentioned.
“But we broke the story. It was on our Web site, myrtlebeachherald.com, before any other outlet reported it.
“Yes, we get beat on most crime stories,” Perry conceded in his column, and there are some events we just can’t cover. Our competition is also talented. This town has some great photographers and reporters.
“But in recent weeks, we’ve shown that we’ve got a pretty good group, too.”
The Myrtle Beach Herald and its sister Waccamaw Publishers weekly newspapers—Carolina Forest Chronicle, Loris Scene and Horry Independent—have stayed on the story about Gilland. The papers have reported, for example, that her ethics fines, as of this writing (Oct. 14, 2009) continue to mount daily, for each day she doesn’t pay, increasing by $1,100 a day. They’ve interviewed Gilland herself, who admits that she’s gotten herself into trouble but who also calls it “much ado about nothing” that has worn her out. Plus, the weekly newspapers have written interview-based stories quoting state officials who say Gilland’s wages could be garnished by the S.C. Department of Revenue to pay the ethics fines.
“A lot of it was pumped a little bit by the media, but that’s their job,” Gilland, a longtime county council member, is quoted as saying in an article published early in October in the Myrtle Beach Herald. “All of the injuries were self-inflicted. It didn’t hurt the county. I didn’t hurt the county. Nobody was wounded. I didn’t steal anything. All of my wounds were self-inflicted. I’m going to go about my business and serve the county.”
Perry credits fellow Waccamaw Publishers journalists Michael Smith, Ashley Bruno (a county reporter who files stories for all four weeklies) and Kathy Ropp (editor of the Horry Independent) as doing outstanding work on the Gilland story.
“It hasn’t just been just our coverage (from the Myrtle Beach Herald). It’s been a fantastic collaboration of strong (Waccamaw Publishers) community newspapers,” Perry said. “It’s making phone calls, looking at documents and doing the things we are supposed to do. . . We don’t have the resources of these large daily newspapers or TV stations, but yet we’re the ones that broke the story. . . I can’t say enough about the people I work with. We lean on each other. . . I’m not going to lie. We get beat on stories, but this also shows we can do good investigative work. . . I’ll put us up with the best of them.”
“People talk about the Sun-News,” Perry noted. “In a lot of cases we’re sort of an afterthought (as a newspaper) in Myrtle Beach. We’re really a small operation, but I honestly think we’re starting to make a name for ourselves.”
Perry says the lesson of the Liz Gilland story for a small community weekly newspaper is this: Don’t be discouraged by your competition’s resources or by your resources. “Community newspapers can win,” he said. “They can break stories that can provide the kind of in-depth coverage that’s often written off as a thing of the past or believed to be something that only large papers can provide.”
One professional who’s a believer in Perry’s mantra is Matt Miller, news director of WMBF News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (TV news partner of the Myrtle Beach Herald.) WMBF has been running the Liz Gilland story full throttle but with appreciative full attribution to the Herald.
Miller believes the Gilland story is important inasmuch as the county council chairwoman is a key political figure in Horry County. Plus, she’s another name on a list of politicians in South Carolina who’ve recently gotten themselves into trouble, and the public has a right to know about such.
In the case of the Myrtle Beach Herald, according to Miller, its small targeted circulation area, much smaller than, say, the likes of the Sun-News, works in its favor.
“They can focus on their community, and I think the Herald and the Chronicle do an excellent job at that. They don’t just do press releases. They go after investigative journalism. That’s why we’re partners with them. Charles (Perry) and Michael (Smith) are just awesome. They do a fantastic job.”
Larry Timbs is an associate professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., where he teaches courses in print and Web journalism.
