Tony Bartelme, the senior projects reporter for The Post and Courier, has earned national honors from the Nieman, Scripps, Loeb and National Press foundations and is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Herb Frazier is a Charleston, South Carolina-based writer. He is senior projects editor at the Charleston City Paper. Frazier has edited and reported for five daily newspapers in the South, including his hometown paper, The Post and Courier. Frazier has authored or co-authored four books. His most recent book, “Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprint of Slavery,” was co-written with Joseph McGill Jr., founder of the Slave Dwelling Project.

Jennifer Berry Hawes writes about the South for the investigative news outlet ProPublica from her home in Charleston and is the author of "Grace Will Lead Us Home" about the Emanuel AME Church shooting. She was a longtime reporter at The Post and Courier, where she was part of the team whose work was recognized for a 2015 Pulitzer Prize.

Gina Smith is the director of SC Investigates and editor of McClatchy’s SC Projects Team, which includes The (Columbia) State, The (Hilton Head) Island Packet and The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News. She’s a 24-year veteran of journalism best known for catching then-Gov. Mark Sanford in the Atlanta airport in 2009 when he was supposedly hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Glenn Smith is The Post and Courier's deputy managing editor for investigations and public service. A Connecticut native, Smith worked for many years as a crime and courts reporter before assuming the helm of The Post and Courier's award-winning special projects team a decade ago.

Brian Tolley is president and editor of The State, The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, and The Sun News. He has led or worked in South Carolina newsrooms for more than 16 years.

Richard Whiting is executive editor at the (Greenwood) Index-Journal where he has worked for the past nearly 25 years. He previously served in various editor and writing roles at the Florence Morning News and The Telegram in Rocky Mount, NC. His newspaper career spans nearly 44 years. His newsroom’s work resulted in a first-place Reid Montgomery Freedom of Information Award in 2012 as a result of a battle with the state Department of Public Safety in seeking the release of public documents and state trooper dash cam video relative to an elected official’s arrest.

Kendra Hamilton is a college professor, author and former journalist. Widely published as a scholar, essayist, and even poet, she is the author of Romancing the Gullah in the Age of Porgy and Bess (University of Georgia Press, 2024), a place-based inquiry into the intersecting literary histories of the Harlem and Charleston Renaissance. Hamilton teaches literature and journalism and directs the Southern Studies program at Presbyterian College.