The ''Tabor-Loris Tribune'' (formerly ''The Tabor City Tribune'') is a weekly newspaper serving

Tabor City, North Carolina Tabor City, known as the "Yam Capital of the World", is a town in Columbus County, North Carolina, United States. It is the southernmost town in Columbus County, one of North Carolina's largest counties by land area. It is located just north of t ...

and

Loris, South Carolina Loris is a city in Horry County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,396 at the 2010 census, up from 2,079 in 2000. Geography Loris is in northern Horry County on the Atlantic coastal plain. U.S. Route 701 passes through the city, ...

in the southeastern United States. It was founded in 1946 by

W. Horace Carter Walter Horace Carter (January 20, 1921 – September 16, 2009) was an American newspaper publishing, publisher in Tabor City, North Carolina, whose paper won a 1953 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and his edit ...

. In

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...

two journalists for the paper won a

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalis ...

after a series of articles on the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

that led to an

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

investigation, resulting in 254 convictions of Klansmen. The paper was renamed the ''Tabor-Loris Tribune'' in 2010 and has been cited by other organizations for its local news coverage.

History

launched the ''Tabor City Tribune'' in 1946, shortly after graduating the University of North Carolina journalism school. He also founded the Atlantic Corporation, which retains ownership of the newspaper. The paper published a series of reports and editorials on the

starting July 26, 1950, in response to the white supremacist organization's resurgence in the area following World War II. Their efforts and the accompanying dangers were noted in the trade press. In 1953, days after the

launched a recruiting drive with a parade through Tabor City, Carter published "An Editorial: No Excuse for KKK." The paper published more than 100 news stories about, and editorials opposing, the KKK from 1950 to 1953. He and his paper endured a number of threats, but found an ally in neighboring Whiteville. Willard Cole, editor of the '' Whiteville News Reporter'' and a former employee of the ''Tribune'', republished many of the ''Tribune's'' stories. The reporting lead to an

investigation, resulting in 254 convictions of Klansmen, of which 62 were imprisoned or fined. The two journalists were awarded the

."Public Service"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-10-26. The ''Tribune'' was the first weekly newspaper in the United States to win a Pulitzer. (and th
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Carter later donated the Pulitzer to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where it was on display as of 2009. They also both won Sidney Hillman awards. Carter has been credited with attracting industry to the area. Carter left the paper when he moved to Florida, turning it over to his son Rusty Carter. He returned to work as editor emeritus in the 1990s. In 1993, during a period of unrest over the dismissal of Black police chief Willie Gore, Carter was quoted in regional news coverage as an authority on race relations in Tabor City. (Notably, coverage of the campaign against the Klan established that racial prejudice was not a central feature of its activities in the Carolinas in the early 1950s. The paper was renamed the ''Tabor-Loris Tribune'' by 2007. Rusty Carter was fined $5,000 and barred for two years from contributing to political campaigns, after having dispensed hundreds of thousands of dollars as bonuses to Atlantic Corp. employees with the understanding that some of them would be used as poli tical campaign contributions. The Atlantic Packaging Corp., as it is now known, remains in the Carter family, and retains ownership of the newspaper. It has grown into a $500 million company employing more than 800 workers in the U.S. and the Caribbean, remains under the leadership of the Carter family; Rusty Carter was president until 2016, when his son Wes Carter took over the role. The paper provides about a tenth of a percent of the company's revenue, and its leadership regards the paper as a "public service." Other news outlets have cited the ''Tabor-Loris Tribune'' for its coverage of local issues and events. The paper was part of a coalition of local and national news outlets that called on a judge to release search warrants sealed during a criminal investigation into voting irregularities in North Carolina's 9th congressional district in 2018. The warrants were subsequently unsealed. The ''Tribune's'' circulation is estimated at 1,200 in 2018.

References

External links

Official web site of the Tabor-Loris Tribune
* Chronicling America pages

Weekly newspapers published in North Carolina Columbus County, North Carolina

History

References

Further reading

External links