The first draft of history: How The Sun News has evolved and where it will move next
The clicks and clacks from keyboards have never stopped ringing out through The Sun News’ newsroom.
The passion of telling the breaking news, crime, government, community stories is still the same.
Holding those accountable who make decisions with tax dollars — yeah, the reporters here still do that, too.
But, Monday The Sun News will have an important change: Its staff will move into a new Myrtle Beach location at 38th Avenue North and Robert Grissom in the Coastal Carolina National Bank Center. The paper will also have a separate warehouse location.
“It’s bittersweet to leave such an iconic location, but we’re excited about our new spot that better suits our needs as a digital media company,” said Stephanie Pedersen, general manager and executive editor. “Our new space brings our operating group together in a way that will facilitate collaboration across departments and help us better serve our great community.”
The new space will be on the third floor, and visitors may stop in from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday to pay their subscriptions, purchase a paper or share news tips — just like before at the 914 Frontage Road East location.
Then and now
The Sun News has operated out of its Frontage Road building just off U.S. 17 Bypass for nearly 40 years.
Twenty years ago, the newsroom was filled with desks and more than 60 people working. Folks were no longer smoking in the newsroom when D.G. Schumacher started part-time following his decades-long career as a newspaperman in Illinois.
“Working in here then was not for someone who couldn’t work in a din of noise and chatter,” Schumacher said. “There were just so many people, most of them typing or on the telephone. You just really had to focus on what you were doing.”
In two decades, he said he’s seen a lot of changes in the room — from the dynamics of the newsroom to no longer printing the paper in house.
“It’s a lot roomier than it was then,” he said.
Schumacher says he enjoys coming into the newsroom once a week to write the Sunday editorial while being around younger journalists.
Over the last nearly 60 years, The Sun News has covered stories on the demolition of the Ocean Forest Hotel in the 1970s, Hurricane Hugo in the late 1980s and the closing of the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in the 1990s.
Thick smoke hung in the air, and there was a lot of clanking on typewriters in the 1970s, said John Monk, former Sun News reporter and current reporter with sister newspaper The State in Columbia.
“Since I didn’t go to journalism school, this was my journalism school,” he said of his early career at The Sun News. “This is where I learned about the principles espoused in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
Now, the paper still has a couple familiar faces from decades ago who have seen changes in the industry, and new faces, who, like the longtimers, are hungry to keep the mission of journalism alive. Led by Pedersen since 2016, the newsroom focuses strongly on its online product, breaking news and accountability journalism while covering a range of topics across the Grand Strand and into the west side of Horry County.
History of the paper
It all started as the Myrtle Beach News — first published June 1, 1935, and owned by C.L. Phillips and J. Clarence Macklen. Its first building was in a warehouse, and later right in the heart of Myrtle Beach on Broadway Street.
You could buy a copy for five cents or a subscription for $1 a year.
Macklen and Phillips operated that paper for 11 years.
Another Myrtle Beach paper — Myrtle Beach Sun — was first published June 16, 1950.
The two papers were bought and sold by individuals and partnerships through the years, and the Myrtle Beach Sun was merged with area papers including the Ocean Beach News.
Mark Garner, former City of Myrtle Beach mayor, eventually bought the Myrtle Beach Sun in 1957. Garner combined the two newspapers to establish The Sun News in 1961.
By 1973, The Sun News had a circulation of 6,600. And the paper eventually became a daily in 1977.
The Sun News went from 32 employees in 1965 to 215 in 1990. In 1995, the newspaper had a circulation of 54,401.
Now owned by McClatchy and previously by Knight Ridder, the paper will celebrate 60 years of coverage as The Sun News in 2021.
Some reporters from the newsroom have gone on to work at McClatchy’s other papers scattered across the country, public relations, and as journalism professors.
“There’s been some very good journalists that have gone through The Sun News’ doors and worked there over the years,” said Marion Foxworth, Horry County registrar of deeds.
Before The Sun News, Foxworth said a well-known paper in town was the The Charlotte Observer, now owned by McClatchy. The paper was read by many tourists who were visiting from Charlotte, North Carolina, he said.
Foxworth said one of his favorite sayings is that newspapers are the first draft of history and tell what’s happening on an ongoing basis.
“The newspaper is the day-to-day chronicle or diary of society at large,” he said.
News coverage through the years
The Sun News has recorded endless amounts of news, county growth and historical events.
Myrtle Beach News was a tabloid until 1939. A glance through the paper then has few photos and was filled with “Ocean Drive News” to “Murrells Inlet News” to “Burgess News.” There were Sunday school lessons and almost everything else went to this tune, “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe went to spend the weekend in Florence with Mr. and Mrs. Bob Smith.” Or “Miss Jane Doe visited Conway for the weekend and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Michael Jones.”
The Jan. 30, 1938, edition was 12 pages long with a devotional reading from Isaiah 61:1-6.
In 1950, the paper was writing about who visited the Ocean Forest Hotel, and the city was expecting 60,000 people for the Fourth of July air show.
The first Myrtle Beach Sun publication had front-page headlines, including the Myrtle Beach census of 3,286 — double from the 1940 population.
The 1940 hurricane was the talk of the town until Hazel hit in 1954, Foxworth said.
The paper reported a 40-car Ku Klux Klan parade that went through Conway in July 1950. Two months later, the Klan leader was arrested following the KKK invading a black Myrtle Beach neighborhood where a policeman was killed in the incident. The paper states the officer was wearing a Klan robe over his uniform.
A headline from Aug. 16, 1961, states “Sun-News State’s Largest Weekly” following the merger of the two newspapers. The editorial was written by Eldridge Thompson, the paper’s editor at the time.
That same year, a doctor was arrested on an abortion charge and another headline read, “Jim Doyle of Conway lands 37-pound Bass.”
A tornado caused $1 million in damage at Ocean Drive Beach in 1963. In 1965, Horry-Georgetown-Marion Technical College was established. The Ocean Forest Hotel was demolished in 1974. And in 1976, the first Horry County Council was elected.
“We thought that Myrtle Beach couldn’t get any bigger in the 70s,” said Mark Hodges, former Sun News reporter in the 1970s.
During his time at the paper, the State-Record Company bought the newspaper.
“The newspaper was emerging from being a small-town type of newspaper. There was more interest in tough journalism,” he said about the new owner. “People weren’t comfortable with that.”
Hodges said he worked his hardest at The Sun News — not only was he writing an average of two stories a day, he was also fact checking constantly and making sure not to jump to conclusions when he received a tip.
“The one thing I learned was working hard — I never worked as hard afterward,” he said.
Hodges had a story that was subject to a lawsuit, which the paper won at the Supreme Court level.
As far as backlash and misconceptions about journalists, Hodges said: “People tend to think their truth is the truth and they don’t appreciate that reporters go through a process to determine as best as they can what is factually true. So there were those tensions always.”
The mid-’70s was also a transitional period that brought more women into the newsroom, said former photographer Donna Bise. The Sun News had a full female photography staff.
“It was a great, young, talented staff,” Bise said.
She recalls on her first day of work — the day after she graduated from University of South Carolina — she was asked by the editor at the time, Jim D’Avignon, to be in the newsroom at 3 p.m. with four enterprise photos. Bise said D’Avignon played a critical part in leading the paper toward hard news coverage.
“We might be small,” she said of the newspaper at the time. “But we are mighty and going to do well.”
The paper covered Hurricane Hugo slamming the Strand in 1989. And in March 1993, Myrtle Beach Air Force Base closed.
Monk, who reported in Myrtle Beach from 1973 to ‘79 at The Sun News, said he will never forget the 3-part series the paper reported on the city’s lifeguard program after a girl drowned while a lifeguard was chasing an umbrella down the beach that was blowing away. Lifeguards then had hardly any training, no buoys, no flags and some may have not even been able to swim, he said.
“It caused a huge uproar,” he said of the series.
But after the stories published, the city manager at the time talked with council, and said The Sun News was right — that the city did need to adequately train lifeguards, Monk said. So the lifeguards went through proper training.
“When I reflected upon that, I thought, look what investigative reporting can do,” Monk said. “When I go to Myrtle Beach’s beach and see the flags and buoys, I think, wow, that’s what the truth did. You had some good people who read it and took action.”
Monk sat on the beach with photographers from the paper and watched the Ocean Forest Hotel crumble to the ground when it demolished in 1974. He met police officers, politicians and community members — all of which were sources who were crucial in his story writing. And now, more than 45 years later, he still fights the journalism fight at the state level in Columbia using the foundation built during his time at The Sun News.
“I just feel really lucky to have spent my life this way,” Monk said.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 10:32 AM.
