Capital Gazette journalists mourn while they’re doing their jobs.
Reporters must cover their own tragedy
A memorial service Monday in Annapolis will celebrate the life of a sharp, witty, longtime journalist – and shorts will be fine, because friends say “Big Rob” Hiaasen wouldn’t want anybody to be uncomfortable in Maryland’s summer heat.
Hiaasen, 59, and four colleagues were killed Thursday when a gunman rampaged through the newsroom of the Capital Gazette, a small daily that is as much a city institution as the sailboats that fill the harbor and the charming shops and restaurants that line the city’s quaint streets.
The small cadre of Gazette journalists who survived the rampage are mourning their colleagues and doing their jobs, continuing to write stories from the offices of their sister newspaper, The Baltimore Sun.
The Gazette published a print edition the next day, and the staff continued to report and write over the weekend. Among the headlines on the Gazette website Sunday: “How the Capital Gazette attack happened.” The article cites police – and the staffers who lived through the horror.
Jarrod Ramos, 38, who had sworn a “legal oath” in court documents to kill a Gazette writer, was held without bond on murder charges. Police said he targeted the paper because of its coverage of his conviction in 2011 for harassing a former classmate. Ramos sued the newspaper, but a judge threw out his lawsuit.
The Gazette story details how the gunman entered the newspaper office’s main entrance at around 2:30 p.m., shattering the glass door with the first blasts from his shotgun.
He had barricaded the room’s only other exit.
Eleven people were in the room. Within minutes, Hiaasen, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, 61; editor/writer John McNamara, 56; sales assistant Rebecca Smith, 34; and reporter/editor Wendi Winters, 65, were killed.