Capital Gazette wins Pulitzer citation for coverage of fatal newsroom shooting
The Pulitzer Prize Board honored The Capital Gazette with a special citation for its “courageous response” to the 2018 fatal shooting in the publication’s newsroom.
The Pulitzer Prize Board honored the Maryland paper “for demonstrating unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief.”
Five staffers were killed in the shooting. The incident is the largest killing of journalists in U.S. history.
“That each of our teams could deliver such precise, compelling, heartbreaking journalism while their own hearts were breaking demands our awe,” Tim Knight, CEO of Tribune Publishing, which owns the Capital Gazette, said.
The five victims of the shooting were Wendi Winters, 65, Robert Hiaasen, 59, Gerald Fischman, 61, John McNamara, 56, and Rebecca Smith, 34.
The citation comes with a $100,000 prize designated "to further the newspaper’s journalistic mission."
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan congratulated the paper, noting that the journalists who died “will never be forgotten.”
