Capital Gazette Staffer: 'We Are Putting Out A Damn Paper Tomorrow'

There’s only one story on the front page of the Capital Gazette’s Friday issue. “5 Shot Dead at The Capital,” the headline reads.

That there would be a Friday issue of the newspaper based in Annapolis, Maryland, was never a question for the staff members who survived the armed attack on their newsroom that killed five of their colleagues and wounded two.

Even as police were investigating the “active shooter” scene, Capital Gazette reporters who were not in the newsroom at the time of the shooting, like E.B. Furguson III, had notebooks in hand and were conducting interviews outside the building.

When asked if they were putting out a paper, Furguson replied, “Hell, yes,” The New York Times reported.

Photographer Joshua McKerrow told The Times: “Our newspaper is one of the oldest newspapers in the U.S. It’s a real newspaper and like every newspaper, it is a family.”

With tears in his eyes, he added: “We will be here tomorrow. We are not going anywhere.”

And they made good on that promise. The front-page story, which has 10 names in the byline, begins:

“Five employees of the Capital Gazette Gerald Fischman, Bob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters were killed Thursday when a gunman entered the newspaper’s offices and opened fire.”

Photos of the five victims run across the top of the page, above the headline. And a six-column photo of the scene outside the building that houses the newspaper’s offices is just under the headline.

Even as they grappled with their grief, trauma and interviews by law enforcement authorities, staff members worked from improvised workstations, including the back of a pickup.