The Capital Gazette Shooting: 5 Years Later

Remembering the attack on a newspaper staff, plus the danger of losing local media

When I was the managing editor of a tiny newspaper in Reidsville, N.C., an angry and grieving man walked into our newsroom, came into my tiny office without warning, and shut the door behind him. His teenaged niece had died in a car accident.

The Reidsville Review, like many small-town community newspapers, had covered the fatality in extensive detail. And the man was angry about the story we had published, which quoted the police report that said his niece was at fault. He believed the story had left a “black stain” on her and on his family.

Anxious to take out his anger and grief on someone, the man threatened multiple times to punch me, even as I tried to listen and calmly talk him down. Finally, I said, "Go ahead," with the stipulation that as soon as the punch was thrown I would throw him through the plate glass window that separated my office from the rest of the newsroom.

Given that I was 5 inches taller and 40 pounds (at least) heavier, he opened my door and left. The police were called.

I was lucky. He never came back.

Remembering the Capital Gazette

Five years ago today, on June 28, 2018, five employees were killed and two were injured when a man with a shotgun opened fire in the newsroom of The Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md.

Seven years earlier, gunman Jarrod Ramos had been put on probation for harassing a high school acquaintance over the Internet. Ramos later sued the newspaper for defamation; the lawsuit was thrown out.

In 2021, a jury sentenced Ramos to six life terms plus 345 years in prison.

Threats and physical violence against journalists have risen in recent years, which comes as no surprise given the shouting over “fake news” and the fragmented nature of our society. When I saw reports of this latest gun-related tragedy, I immediately flashed back to that day in Reidsville, and to my career as a newspaper journalist.

I worked for community papers in Texas and North Carolina for more than a decade. It is hard, grueling labor, the only constants being long hours and low pay. (You sure as hell don’t do it for the money, the quality of life, or the fame.)

You do it because you love to write and be part of the community in which you live. You publish, despite what others may think, more positive stories than negative ones.

The day of the shooting, Capital Gazette reporter Chase Cook (no relation) tweeted: “I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.”

Thanks to the dedication of journalists who worked through their trauma and grief, it happened. Given what I know about community journalists, I wasn’t surprised.

Sobering Facts

The broader discussion here is the decline of the print newspaper industry, which has struggled to adapt its business model since the early days of the Internet. According to the Pew Research Center, weekday newspaper circulation in the United States has fallen 57 percent since 2004. Between 2008 and 2019, the number of newsroom employees dropped 51 percent. 

None of those statistics should come as a shock, even to non-journalists, but the closing of more than 2,500 newspapers in the United States since 2005 should be cause for concern. Most of the newspapers that have survived — many of them mere shadows of what they once were — have been in major media markets.

Smaller communities have less access to local news, with 70 million residents — one-fifth of the nation’s population — living in an area without a news organization or one that is risk. Seven percent of the nation’s counties no longer have a local newspaper, according to a 2022 report from the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School.

Why is this important? Earlier this month, a survey by the Medill School showed only 30.4 percent of Americans believe local news media hold public officials accountable. The top ways we now consume local news: Television, followed closely by social media. And we all know that social media is a reliable, fact checked way to get information, right?

R-I-G-H-T….

The result of the decline in local news is two-fold. Without anyone to hold public officials accountable, chances are that corruption will increase or not be uncovered. We already see voters focusing on national — not local — issues when they go to the polls at a time when the major parties are pushing wedges instead of unity.

There are some communities that have found workable alternatives to the local newspaper, but overall they’re too few and far between. As a former journalist that makes me sad. As a current parent and grandparent, that makes me fearful of what the future holds.

While it is easy to make fun of a local newspaper that clogs up your driveways and trash cans, remember that the reporters who are still working in your communities are doing the best they can, often in workplace conditions that resemble white collar sweatshops in terms of pay and benefits.

Getting back to what happened five years ago today, at no point should innocent people be killed in an incident of mass violence. I think we can all agree on that, but it remains to be seen if anything can or ever will be done to stop it from happening.