Capital Gazette staff 'are like family', says mourning Annapolis community

Before a mass shooting turned the Capital Gazette into a national news story, it was simply “the paper”.

Residents of Annapolis, Maryland, used the phrase as shorthand for the local newspaper when they weren’t referring to it by its nickname, “the Capital”. Subscribers woke up to a copy on their front porch every morning, and others checked the website daily for updates on their community.

So when a lone gunman opened fire on the offices on Thursday, killing four reporters and one supporting staff member, hundreds of Annapolis residents marched in the streets to mourn their loss.

Prosecutors say 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos – a local man who had a long-standing grudge against the Capital – carried out a “targeted attack” on the paper’s offices, barricading the exits and hunting down victims with a pump-action shotgun.

He was charged on Friday with five counts of first-degree murder and has yet to enter a plea.

Killed in the attack were assistant managing editor Rob Hiaasen, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, special projects editor Wendi Winters, reporter John McNamara and sales assistant Rebecca Smith. Two other staff members were injured.

At an impromptu memorial outside the Capital’s offices on Saturday, residents stopped by to drop off flowers and share their memories of the victims.

Local high school student Kate Belliveau recalled how Ms Winters had helped her school’s production of West Side Story make it into the pages of the Capital for the first time. Her mother, Judy, recalled how Mr McNamara had interviewed her uncle, Bob Ferry, for a sports feature.

“Everybody knew someone [at the Capital] in some way,” her daughter, Megan, said.

“That’s just the way Annapolis is,” Ms Belliveau added.

The unassuming paper traces its history back to 1727, when British journalist William Parks founded its sister publication, the Maryland Gazette. It was of the few papers still in operation to publish the original Declaration of Independence, although the document was relegated to page two in order to make room for local news.

Capital Gazette Communications – which operates both the Capital and the Maryland Gazette – was sold to the Baltimore Sun Media Group in 2014. Reporters from the Baltimore Sun helped the Capital cover the shooting on Thursday afternoon, so the paper could put out a front-page article on the tragedy in its own newsroom.

“5 shot dead at The Capital,” read the headline, printed in bold type above photos of the five slain staffers. Only the editorial page was left mostly blank, reading: “Today, we are speechless.”

Ledyard King, a USA Today reporter who worked for the Capital from 1988 to 1994, said the paper had always been one of “immense ambition for its size”. Capital reporters often went on to work at larger papers, like the Virginian-Pilot or the Sun. The Washington Post and New York Times have both counted Capital alumni among their staff.

The paper’s former publisher, Phil Merrill, was “intensely interested in documenting and being responsive to the community,” Mr King told The Independent. It was common knowledge in the newsroom that Mr Merill wanted everybody in Annapolis to have their picture in the paper at some point.

The Capital’s reporting on its community had concrete effects. A 2013 article about a paralysed young woman resulted in more than $400,000 (£300,000) in donations to help her modify her home so she could use it more easily. A 2014 story on a formerly homeless man who moved into the area earned him donations of everything from furniture to toilet paper.

The Capital's team was also well capable of holding the city’s powerful to account. Former Capital reporter Scott Harper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1991 for his reporting on hazing and sexual harassment at the nearby Naval Academy. His work resulted in six congressional and naval investigations, according to the Virginian-Pilot.

Mr King also made waves as a reporter at the Capital, unearthing a scandal in which top wage earners in the county created a special pension system for themselves. The special pension system was eventually dissolved, and Mr King’s reporting led to the state’s Public Information Act being changed, according to a column by former Capital editor and publisher Tom Marquardt.

City councilwoman Elly Tierney, who had a previous petty theft conviction uncovered by Capital reporters during her campaign last year, told The Independent she nearly dropped out of her race after hearing what the paper had unearthed.

Instead, she reached out to the reporter who uncovered the scandal – Danielle Ohl – to share more about what lead to her 2012 conviction. Ms Ohl was the first person she thought of when she heard about the shooting on Thursday, she said.

“There I was on the front page, and yet still, I respect what they did,” Ms Tierney said, adding: “They become like family.”

Mr King said that close-knit feeling extended to the paper’s alumni as well. More than 60 of them still keep up in an email group, and plan get-togethers every few years. An unwelcome reunion of sorts occurred on Friday night, when about a dozen former Capital reporters turned out for a candle-lit vigil honouring the victims.

Current Capital reporter Pat Furguson promised the more than 100 vigil attendees that the paper would ”continue to do our bit to provide real news to better inform citizens in this republic”.

Then he delivered two sentences summing up decades-worth of the Capital’s work in Annapolis: “We are not the enemy,” he said. “We are you.”