Gregory Yee Obituary, Death – Gregory Yee, a hard-charging Los Angeles Times breaking news reporter, died abruptly on Wednesday at his Hollywood home. The cause appeared to be respiratory difficulties, according to his family. He was 33. Yee joined The Times as a night reporter on the Metro team in the summer of 2021, and he was one of 18 reporters on the Fast Break desk, the paper’s breaking news division. He worked the shift from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., occasionally uploading three or four breaking-news stories per night.
He discussed heat waves and wildfires, as well as gun violence in Oakland and the debate over robotic police dogs. He talked about the search for P-22, a mountain lion, and the City of Los Angeles’ efforts to conserve the historic lampposts on the Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct before they were all removed. Yee was up in Los Angeles and attended UC Irvine, where she served as the student newspaper’s editor in chief until 2012, when she graduated with a double degree in Spanish and literary journalism. “He contributed courage, enthusiasm, discipline, and a strong desire to whatever assignment he undertook,” said Barry Siegel, the program’s director.
“It seemed obvious to me that Greg would go on to do great things in journalism, carving out a truly unique career,” the author says. He began his career as a reporter for a New Mexico newspaper before going on to the Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Charleston Post and Courier, where he anchor coverage of a mass shooting by a former NFL player in Rock Hill. The incident piqued the interest of Times reporter Sam Farmer, who was covering the story in South Carolina at the time and contacted Yee. Yee expressed a desire to work for his local newspaper, which resulted in an interview with The Times.
When The New York Times offered him a job in 2021, he packed Jake, his pit dog mix, into his Toyota Camry and headed back to his hometown. “We performed a nationwide search, and he was by far the best candidate we could find,” B.J. Terhune, an assistant managing editor who oversaw his work, revealed. “He was ecstatic by the breaking news. When we were interviewing him, that really stuck out.” He worked from home during the outbreak and never met many of his staff in person.