Tribune Publishing closing Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis but staff will continue covering the community

Tribune Publishing, the parent company of Baltimore Sun Media, announced Wednesday it was permanently closing the newsroom of The Capital in Annapolis, as well as several other newsrooms around the country, but said news coverage would not be interrupted.

The Capital staff, which has been working remotely since March due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be provided workspace as needed when The Baltimore Sun office reopens, Trif Alatzas, publisher and editor-in-chief of Baltimore Sun Media, told employees in an email Wednesday afternoon. Reporters and editors may continue working from home or remote locations even after the Baltimore office reopens.

The company will also shutter the newsroom of the Carroll County Times based in Westminster, and Baltimore Sun staff will not return to their offices “until some point in 2021 at the earliest,” Alatzas told employees in an email Wednesday afternoon.

“We remain committed to our in-depth community coverage, and we will work with managers and staff to ensure that we are providing readers with the news and information they expect from our publications,” he wrote. “These decisions were not made lightly or hastily. Amid a pandemic that prevents us from safely returning to our offices for an undetermined period of time, the company has decided to formally close those workspaces.”

This decision comes as many news organizations are dealing with the swift drop in advertising brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The parent company of McClatchy announced recently that the Miami Herald, Charlotte Observer and other publications as well as its Washington, D.C. bureau will give up their offices.

In a statement, Tribune spokesperson Max Reinsdorf said, “Out of an abundance of caution we do not anticipate having employees that can work remotely coming back into the office for the remainder of the year and into 2021. With no clear path forward in terms of returning to work, and as the company evaluates its real estate needs in light of health and economic conditions brought about by the pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close the office.

“Furthermore, our journalists in Annapolis have covered their communities in great detail over the last several months, all while working from home, and we’ve seen some of the highest levels of engagement on our sites through this period.”

The announcement comes just over two years after the staff of The Capital had to leave its previous newsroom after a gunman murdered five of the paper’s staffers, Rebecca Smith, Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen and John McNamara on June 28, 2018. The paper won a 2019 special Pulitzer Prize citation for coverage of the shooting. The staff moved into the new space that will soon close in June 2019.

The Chesapeake News Guild, which represents the staff at The Capital and the Carroll County Times, will seek to bargain over the effects of Tribune’s decision, said Danielle Ohl, a Capital reporter and chair of the Chesapeake News Guild.

“While we’ve been able to work remotely over the last five months, we never expected this to become permanent. It’s true, we can and will continue to put out the same quality we always have, but this is going to make it harder,” Ohl said. “Technology is great, but there’s really nothing that can replace the camaraderie and collaboration a physical newsroom provides. We really hope our parent company recognizes what they’ll be losing.”

Other Tribune-owned papers announced similar closures Wednesday, including the Allentown Morning Call, Orlando Sentinel and the New York Daily News.