A year after newsroom attack, Md. journalists embraced by city

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Standing ovations. A surge in subscriptions. Hugs from random readers. At a time when journalists are being vilified as "the enemy of the people," staff members at the Capital Gazette newspaper are feeling the embrace of a grateful community, one year after a gunman went on a newsroom rampage that left five of their colleagues dead.

Reporters who survived the worst attack on journalists in U.S. history say the trauma has not faded, but their connection with their readers is a source of comfort and inspiration.

"They'll say that they read our work, and then they'll be really nice to us, which is nice, even if they disagree with whatever we're reporting," said reporter Selene San Felice, who hid under a desk during the June 28, 2018, shooting.

Killed were Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; Rob Hiaasen, an assistant managing editor; John McNamara, a staff writer who covered sports; Rebecca Smith, an advertising sales assistant; and Wendi Winters, special publications editor.

The paper received a special Pulitzer Prize citation and $100,000 for its coverage of the attack and its insistence on putting out the next day's paper. The staff was named along with other journalists as Time magazine's 2018 Person of the Year. Editor Rick Hutzell won the National Press Foundation's Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award.

Annapolis residents held fundraisers and gave employees a rolling standing ovation when they marched in the July Fourth parade just days after the attack. Subscriptions soared 70 percent a week after the bloodshed and remain there, said Renee Mutchnik, a spokeswoman for paper's owners, Baltimore Sun Media. Readers have been known to walk up to staffers to thank them.

Journalists at the paper say the honors and award have helped but haven't made the trauma go away. Some have turned to their craft to heal. Some have rededicated themselves to journalism.

Reporter Rachael Pacella, who hid between filing cabinets during the shooting, has broken down at funerals and in the Wyoming wilderness on a camping trip. Covering a City Council meeting in Bowie, Md., distressed her because the press area was too far from the exit, the escape route in case of attack.

"Through counseling and support, I've gotten a lot better over time," she said, "and the experience has also sort of reconfirmed to me my commitment to journalism and has made me want to give back even more to the community in terms of telling their story."

Overcome by anxiety and despair after the shooting, photojournalist Paul Gillespie asked colleagues and victims' relatives to sit for simple black-and-white portraits in his basement. Gillespie, who escaped from the newsroom during the attack, calls his project "Journalists Matter: Faces of the Capital Gazette."