‘Always been a dream’: Sun News names new senior editor/general manager

Justin M. Madden has been named senior editor / general manager of the Sun News.

Madden will oversee the day-to-day operations of The Sun News and myrtlebeachonline.com. He arrives at a time when The Sun News is expanding its local reporting team, recently adding two new reporting positions to increase its coverage of Horry and Georgetown counties.

“I am excited and grateful to be joining the Myrtle Beach newsroom and to tell the stories of that community and surrounding communities,” Madden said. “It has always been a dream of mine to work in South Carolina, a place I have a connection with and have many relatives living there and spent a lot of summers and vacations visiting there.

“This is a very important and exciting time to be a journalist, with so much news happening on a national and local level, and I am deeply committed to telling stories that are important to readers.”

Madden is a multimedia journalist who began his career as a reporter at the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader. He later worked in the Cleveland, Ohio, area as a digital content producer at WEWS-TV and covered crime and courts and wrote high-impact stories for cleveland.com, an online media company. He currently is a desk editor for The Associated Press in New York.

Madden, a native of Southern California, is a graduate of Grambling University with a bachelor’s degree in mass communications. He is active in a number of professional journalism organizations, including the National Association of Black Journalists and Online News Association.

He begins his new role Sept. 15.

“We are excited to have Justin join us,” said Brian Tolley, executive editor and publisher of McClatchy’s newspapers in South Carolina. “He brings to us strong editing and leadership skills and a commitment to the community we serve. And just as exciting is his ties to, and love for, South Carolina.”