Maryland shooting: 'We are putting out a damn paper', defiant Capital Gazette staff say

Reporter says newspaper office was like a 'war zone'

Staff at the Capital Gazette were determined to put out the next day’s edition of the paper despite a shooting in the newsroom which left five people dead.

“I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow,” Chase Cook, a reporter at the Maryland daily, wrote on Twitter a few hours after the shooting.

The Gazette published its Friday edition in spite of the fact its newsroom had been turned into an off-limits crime scene.

The paper’s website also featured in-depth stories on the shooting, photos and profiles of each of the staff members killed and a profile on the suspected shooter.

The suspect used a shotgun to blast his way through to the newsroom in Annapolis on Thursday, killing four journalists and one member of staff.

He fired through a glass door, searched for victims and then sprayed the room with repeated blasts of his shotgun as journalists took cover and crawled under desks.

Phil Davis, a courts and crime reporter for the paper, tweeted to say the gunman shot out the glass door to the office and fired into the newsroom, sending people scrambling under desks.

“There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload,” he wrote in a tweet.

In a later interview on the paper’s online site, Mr Davis likened the newspaper office to a “war zone.”

“I’m a police reporter. I write about this stuff – not necessarily to this extent, but shootings and death – all the time,” he said.

“But as much as I’m going to try to articulate how traumatizing it is to be hiding under your desk, you don’t know until you’re there and you feel helpless.”

Survivors said the shooting, though it seemed agonisingly long, lasted mere minutes.

The police said officers arrived within a minute and took the gunman into custody without an exchange of gunfire.

It came amid months of attacks on the “fake news media” from Donald Trump and his administration.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene,” the US president said in a tweet.

Those killed included Rob Hiaasen, the paper’s assistant managing editor; Gerald Fischman, editorial page editor; features reporter Wendi Winters; reporter John McNamara, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith.

The newspaper said two other employees had non-life threatening injuries and were later released from a hospital.