Capital Gazette Staff Cited By Pulitzer Board For Work Following Newsroom Shooting

The Capital Gazette was awarded a special citation as part of the Pulitzer Prizes, a bittersweet honor for the staff's coverage of the June shooting that left five of their colleagues dead.

2019's winners of the most prestigious honors in journalism and the arts were announced Monday.

The special citation honored the reporters, editors and other staff for their "courageous response" to the massacre in their Annapolis newsroom. The Pulitzer Board honored the staff's "unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief" and gave them a $100,000 bequest to "further the newspaper's journalistic mission."

The Capital Gazette's editorial staff was also a finalist in editorial writing. The board cited the paper's "deeply personal editorials" on gun violence, loss and recovery.

On June 28, 2018, assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman, reporter Wendi Winters, reporter and editor John McNamara and sales assistant Rebecca Smith were shot and killed by an intruder police said had a longstanding grudge against the paper.

Suspect Jarrod Ramos' trial is set to begin in November. His defense is considering an insanity plea.