May 7th, 2021 by WCBC Radio

Maryland’s spending panel has approved funding for a memorial honoring five people killed at the Capital Gazette newspaper in 2018. The Board of Public Works approved a $300,000 grant this week to partially fund the Guardians of the 1st Amendment Memorial in Annapolis. Unstable soil at the site meant new soil had to be brought in and steel helical piles had to be installed. This added another $200,000 to the project’s cost, bringing the total to about a half million dollars. The memorial is still expected to be complete before the dedication on June 28, the three-year anniversary of the mass shooting that killed five Capital Gazette staffers. Comptroller Peter Franchot places much of the blame on the rise in attacks against journalists on former President Donald Trump who coined the term “fake news” and often referred to the media as the “enemy of the people”…