For journalists in america since 9 11. And today in the aftermath of the attack in annapolis, the Capital Gazette is honoring their five fallen colleagues with this front page. Even after the newsroom was turned into a bulletriddled war zone, the Capital Gazette continued to publish. Theres been three editions since thursday. Theres also been an incredible outpouring of support from the community. A reminder of the power of local journalism and the importance that it has in the lives of so many americans. We want to talk in depth about what happened at the Capital Gazette office on thursday and how the papers recovering now. Lets start by talking to two staffers in one after their first interviews. Rachel pachella and phil davis were inside of the newsroom on thursday. Two of the six survivors from inside the building. Thank you so much for coming on the program. Absolutely. Thank you for having us. Rachel, i know you are injured. You have what looks like a black eye a few days later. Can you tell us how youre doing physically . Im fine. It looks a lot better than it was. This was looking kind of bad and i got the chance to kind of wash it and clean all the blood off this morning, and it is looking great. Im glad to hear it. You sound as if youre on the mend, but i know, you know, on thursday you were trying to flee the office when the shots rang out. In this mornings Baltimore Sun, one of your colleagues was quoted saying, id never seen someone fight for their life like that. What did you do . What did you do when you heard the shots . I was working at my computer. I was actually trying to finish up a story about induction day. Rob sent me a message saying you didnt send a photo in from that press conference earlier. I said ill get on that. Thats when the shooting occurred. I heard a gunshot, glass shattered. I kind of reck niced it immediately and i ducked under my desk. Then i heard more and realized under the desk was not a safe place to be. You could look around and you see me. So i made a sprint for the door. I think i tripped im pretty sure i tripped. I may have run straight into the door frame, to be honest. But i hit my head really hard against the door frame. I was bleeding. And then obviously, you know, when i did try the door handle to get out it was barricaded. So i hopped over in between some filing cabinets and hid there. Phil, you were under a desk. I guess you werent able to run at that point. You had to stay under your desk. What did you do . No, no. I me. Oh, sorry. Yeah. To describe what i was going through at the time, i was in a similar position to her. We work in the same part of the bullpen for reporters. And i had what i thought was a decent hiding spot. So i thought my best chances would be under there. So i hid, i could hear most of it. I heard all of it, to be honest. I didnt see most of it until i was able to walk out afterward. But yeah as i was hiding under my desk, i had my work phone on me and i just happened to have a Text Exchange with sergeant amy migez, the spokesperson for the Annapolis Police department that was already open because i think i was texting her about Something Else or i was about to before it happened. And i started texting her that what was happening, what was going on. Because when there was kind of a silent point as to what was happening, i didnt know if the guy had left. I didnt know what was going on. I didnt want to call 911. So i just started to text her as quickly as i could what was happening. Once she grasped it, she said she called 911 and told me to stay as low as i could. And that may be one of the reasons why police were able to arrive so quickly. Still, out of the 11 people in the office, 5 died. You mentioned one of them, rachel. Rob. One of the editors. Why is it, rachel, that you think you were spared . Is it simply where you were in the building . Was it that simple . Well, i thought about this a lot. I remembered this yesterday, because, you know its weird because wednesday i actually left my laptop at home. I forgot it. And wednesday i had to sit up front near rob and gerald and use a spare computer up there. So i guess im happy that that happened on wednesday and not on thursday. Oh, my god. Yeah. And i spared isnt the right term. You know . Maybe i hid well . I was very scared because i was bleeding pretty bad i dly. If he had looked over and seen the trail of blood to where i was, i think it would have been easy to find me. I dont know a lot of i havent read through a lot of the details about, like i know you said maybe he ran out of bullets. I dont know. I dont know. I dont know. We may never know. I know rachel you were rushed to the hospital. When did you find out that some of your colleagues were dead . You know, i think that the police and the folks at the hospital did a good job of kind of i dont want to say i wanted information. As journalists i wanted information. You know that. I kept asking for information. They just said they didnt know anything. It was probably around 9 00 after i had done the stuff at the hospital, been discharged, get to the police station, and i told them i wanted information. We agreed well do the interview first to be nice and calm. And then after, you know, my first question was is anyone dead. Of course, you know we had to step over wendis body when we were leaving. But i didnt know if she was definitely dead. But that was when they told me several people died. A little while later they said it was five people. And then i had actually reconnected with another survivor who was also injured. And she was the one who told me sort of which people had died. And we have their faces on screen now. Wendi, gerald, john, rebecca, rob. Phil, how does the paper go on as a practical matter when youve lost 75 years of journalism experience . In a practical sense . I can tell you a common shared view of our personalities and who we are, i dont think when i read chases quote yesterday, i wont repeat it, but it was exactly how i felt. I remember actually when i was sleeping at a friends house after it happened after we were done with police and everything. I was still checking case search, im sure you know how that works. The cases here are pretty public. I searched for the guys name late at night to see if they had officially charged him. I guess they had filed it officially late that night. I was still i actually kind of felt like, when i saw the bail review hearing that was going to be at 10 30, even though it was maybe 4 00 in the morning, i was thinking maybe i should contact my editor to be like, i dont think im going to be able to go to that or something to that regard. But then i woke up at 10 45 the next morning, and i was like, man, i cant believe i wasnt there. Obviously you check the docket every day as part of his job. Definitely. And look, im glad so many outlets have avoided saying his name too much, showing the suspects picture too much. Its clearly not about him. As you said, phillip, the vigil on friday night, the story is about these five victims. And their lives, their contributions. I did wonder as i read more about them, did any of you fear this might happen . Was there a fear, phil, that this could happen some day . Not to this extent. No. Never. It really is you know, ive been reading a lot of the stories about the community and the way it kind of coalesced around us. It is such a tight knit community. And certainly, you know, weve had our fair share of blows in terms of commenters or people that are upset with the type of coverage we write. Because we still try to even though were a small paper, were critical and investigative. We go after the tough story no matter how small our newsroom might be now. But never had we ever gotten a response to a story like that that really made us fear any amount of violence. Once we had started learning the charges and what hes alleged to have or rather the lawsuit previously and the alleged connection between his motive and that lawsuit, i mean, that was 2012. Neither of us were here then. Never on our minds. I think its notable that police have not yet said that they know the motive. We know the grudge he had against the paper, but we dont know what caused him to snap. Im sorry, rachel. Go ahead. Oh, i was just going to say in the ambulance, that was one of the things i was thinking of. I was thinking a lot first, i want to say im proud of my colleagues. Because when i was in there, i just was like, theres not going to be a paper tomorrow. Thats so weird. Theres not going to be a paper. Theres not going to be a paper. There was a paper. Thats wonderful. And one of the other things i said was just, what could we have done to make people hate us so much . Why do people hate the media . What could we have done to deserve this . And i thought maybe it was connected to the election that was on tuesday. We did a lot of election coverage. Oh, yeah, the primary. Yeah. But yeah. I couldnt i didnt expect this. And i couldnt i couldnt fathom or think of any reason someone would do this to us afterwards. Are you having any second thoughts about journalism as a profession now . You want to answer that for or want me to go . I havent weve been told not to make any kind of big decisions. But i want to be a journalist. Its who i am. Yeah. Its difficult. You know, im sure there are a bunch of people in the truck and you as well that understand that when you get attached to the industry it becomes an intricate part of your life. Something you really cant lose and something that people cant take away from you. Even in light of this, you know, we dont know how long its going to take to recover. We dont know what tomorrow looks like, but at the same time, i can kind of look at myself in the mirror and say he didnt take that away from me. For me, yeah, far in the future . I dont know 100 . But its i dont think ive ever had a moment in my life since i first became a reporter that i ever thought it wouldnt be a part of my life, like, ever. Yeah. It feels like its going to be there no matter what. Even if we dont come back, its still going to be there. Rachel and phil, thank you so much for coming on the program today. Thank you for having us and letting us tell our story. Coming up, another part of this story. As rachel was saying, the continued publication of the Capital Gazette. Were going to talk to one of the staffers who rushed to the scene of the shooting and kept the paper printing after the attack. Pl right after this. Es, hes less confident. Here, yogi. 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I wrote the profile and rob told me, you know, he thought it was one of my favorites of his, you know, he was always kind and encouraging. And we talked in the past about how id had some issues with confidence and i lost my voice for awhile. Ive been finding it again as a writer in these recent months. He told me he sensed that and he told me that its very important that we all find our voices. Not just in our writing but in our work lives too. I think that was very meaningful to me that he was always encouraging us like that. I did also want to share that story because i think that that message of kindness is very important right now. Yeah. It feels like hell go on. Such incredible talent weve lost. Not just annapolis, but for the state, the country. Phil, at the vigil you were telling me earlier you saw in the crowd people youd covered before, people you interviewed before. This time they wanted to come out for you. Yeah. No, them giving me, us, the whole paper the platform to grieve so publicly over Something Like that. And then to be behind us and want to share in that grief. And to see that they wanted to share in that grief. Thats honestly what helped me make the speeches i did. Because i had no intentions originally of speaking in front of that crowd. But, you know, the names of those people need to be remembered. Thats a big part of why were doing this. Is that you can see that those Community Members were so att h attached to those people and the stories we heard throughout the day, you know, only informed the support structure we had underneath us at that paper in terms of all the people that were unfortunately killed that day. I cant thank the annapolis people and the Anne Arundel Community enough. They were all there. I told you this even yesterday, brian. A couple months ago when a tenth grader in Anne Arundel County had a march, i did a paper on that story. Phil was covered that. That was his saturday shift and he was there to write about it. Then last night the girl who organized that march or friday night, the girl who organized that march, she played the bagpipes and she was leading the way as we walked down main street. Wow. Thank you, again, phil and rachel. Thanks for letting me bring you back. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us. I want to turn to Capital Gazette photojournalist now. Hes near the office turned crime scene. Josh, i wanted to ask you about what happened right after the shooting. You were not there, thankfully. You rushed to the scene. How did you help get this paper published that night . Its an incredible story. Thank you, brian. I mean, i dont know if its that incredible. I think we did what any newsroom would have done. You know, when i arrived on scene, i just did my job and i photographed what was happening. I tweeted a batch of pictures. I did some more, i tweeted more. And then i hooked up with my comrades chase cook and pat ferguson. And we just went to work. We didnt we went to work gathering facts and trying to figure out who was safe. Thats just what we did. Hundreds of people across the u. S. Have subscribed to your paper as a show of solidarity. And for now i know that the staff has been working up in baltimore at the office of the parent company, the Baltimore Sun. I saw this morning in the paper your editor was quoted saying we will never go back to that office space. But now theres a search for new office space. You are trying to figure out where to relocate in annapolis. How do you think this is going to change the paper . I think its going to make us stronger. I think, you know, journalists especially newspaper journalists and Community Newspaper journalists, theyre a special bunch. You know, so many people have come through the capital newsroom over the decades. And they knew the mission and they all know the mission. I think this will only just rededicate us, rededicate us to this mission. I mean, this isnt going to stop us. And especially when i think about my friends that we lost, theres nothing i want to do more than get back to work and get another newspaper to cover. Stay with us. I mentioned the Baltimore Sun has helped che eed keep them on feet to publish. This highlighted the facts so many newsrooms get so many threats, so much hate mail. Sometimes straight up death threats. How are you viewing what happened on thursday . Brian, one of the things is im surprised at how moved i am by what happened at the Capital Gazette and how profound an experience it is and the courage and the dedication of the people youve just had on and reading the obituaries and knowing rob hiaasen well. We worked together for 15 years. The ever laexemplary lives they. One of the stories that is important in a practical sense and this is a media show, is the advantage of being part of Something Like the Baltimore Sun media group. Because the production and design is done in baltimore. Thursday when that happened, the sun newsroom went into all hands on deck. Which i had not seen and experienced since the death of freddie gray in 2015. And we just played an auxiliary role. Those folks did it. But there are so many people at the sun that worked at the gazette and feel deeply about it. Feel totally involved in it. And everybody just said whatever we can do, you can do. If you look at a video of the vigil that was shot by a superb young videographer who just came to the sun last year from the gazette, thats the kind of synergy. Its way beyond synergy. Its triable. Its brotherhood, its sisterhood between the two publication. That really clicked in. And i really hope this. You know, phil said he wanted those folks, the five to be remembered. And hes so right. And one of the ways we can remember him, i hope everybody will read the obituaries at the gazette and at the sun and in the post and in the times and everywhere else. A great obituary makes you see the person as a human being. Were being dehumanized. And thats my takeaway. Somebody tells y