Clay Hopkins is a Charleston County attorney who took issue with an article written by a Freelance Journalist named Lee Granade, who published an article called Charleston is a “Judicial Hellhole”. This was distributed on the MyrtleBeachSC News aggregate platform which is in its infancy.
633,000 S.C. voters (93%) demanded S.C. Judicial Reform this past Saturday by ballot referundum.
Meanwhile, Charelston based Attorney Clay Hopkins reached out to our news team today, threatening to sue us for distributing Ms. Granade’s article entitled Charleston is a Judicial Hellhole. He claims he was defamed.
MyrtleBeachSC News has decided to embrace the emerging digital era, similar to the approach taken by Yahoo News in collaboration with the Myrtle Beach Sun News or the Hilton Head Island Packet. Likewise, Newsbreak and Substack, among other news sources, have adopted a similar strategy.
ISLAND PACKET EXAMPLES 2024 NEWS PLATFORMS
For distribution purposes, many freelance writers and news publications are sharing their news on other news platforms such as NEWSBREAK, Yahoo, Bing, etc. It has become a common practice.
The article just above published today by The Island Packet was also distributed on Yahoo News.
Question: What happens when a person takes issue with an Island Packet article? Should he sue the Island Packet? Should he sue Yahoo? Or should he sue all of the above?
Clay Hopkins is a Charleston County attorney. The article he questioned was distributed on the MyrtleBeachSC News aggregate platform much like the Sun News, NY Times, USA Today, Newsbreak, Substack, NewsBreakApp, among others shares such content.
Below is a segment of Clay Hopkins’ statement that you can read.
Lee Granade is a Freelance court reporter, who has redistributed articles on our news platform since late 2023.
HOPKINS STATES HIS ISSUE WITH THE ARTICLE
From: Clay Hopkins
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2024 10:54 AM
To: MyrtleBeachSC
Subject: RE: Granade Article
“In our (YOUR) December 1, 2023 article, titled, Charleston is a “Judicial Hellhole” this week…, we (you) referred to a pending Charleston County family court action and reported that a former attorney who was subjected to discipline by the South Carolina Supreme Court was, or is still, practicing law and employed by the law firm actively handling the case.
The author of the article did not reach out to the former attorney or the current attorney handling that matter, and upon review (according to Hopkins), it does not appear that information was, or is, true.”
________
MyrtleBeachSC News reached out to Lee Granade and she stands behind her story. She informed us,
“I did reach out – to court and on his website and clarified that, but also clarified that an attorney cannot comment on a pending case. I took it up with Clay on email send at 6:55 p.m. tonight.”
As we are now moving into a new operating model, like Yahoo and Newsbreak, MyrtleBeachSC News chose to remove the article from our platform. For reference, on February 8th, platform redistributor Newsbreak removed one of our articles for supposed Graphic Content after it was reported by an associate of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.
The details of that Newsbreak article removal can be found here: https://myrtlebeachsc.com/recent-censorship-of-local-news-in-myrtle-beach-elevates-concerns/
We didn’t make much of the removal since Newsbreak functions as an aggregator.
Courts seldom find the law keeping pace with technological advancements, as the law tends to respond rather than anticipate. In this context, it appears that there is a lack of established legal precedents.
On Tuesday, Speaker Murrell Smith’s “S.C. House Judicial Reform Committee” will come back with what is expected to be an overhaul request of the JMSC, the Family Court System, and the Criminal Court system in S.C.
This is a developing story.
