A US local newspaper has won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of a mass shooting in its own newsroom.

But there was no celebration as the Capital Gazette in Maryland learned on Monday it had won the most prestigious prize in American journalism, the BBC reported.

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The staff quietly hugged in memory of five colleagues slain when a gunman burst into their office in June 2018.

Pulitzers also went to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal for investigations of US President Donald Trump.

The Capital Gazette in Annapolis won a special Pulitzer Prize citation for its coverage and courage in the face of one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in American history.

The Pulitzer board awarded the citation with a $100,000 grant to further the newspaper’s journalism.

Employees John McNamara, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Gerald Fischman and Rob Hiaasen died in last summer’s attack.

But the staff still managed to publish a newspaper on schedule the next day.

A man with a longstanding grudge against the Capital Gazette is charged with the attack. He pleaded not guilty last year.

Coverage of mass shootings netted Pulitzers for two other local newspapers.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette received a breaking news award for its “immersive, compassionate” reporting of last October’s attack at a Pennsylvania synagogue that left 11 people dead.

And the South Florida Sun-Sentinel won a Pulitzer for its reporting on the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead.

It received the public service award for “exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage”.

The New York Times won a prize for explanatory reporting of Trump’s finances and tax avoidance and another for editorial writing.

The Wall Street Journal won the national reporting prize for uncovering the president’s secret payoffs to two alleged former mistresses during his campaign.

The Washington Post also won two Pulitzers for photojournalism in Yemen and for criticism.