Carl Hiaasen: My Brother Would Have Been 'So, So Proud'

MIAMI, FL — South Florida bestselling author and columnist Carl Hiaasen said his younger brother would have been "so, so proud" of The Capital Gazette staff who put out Friday's newspaper after a gunman with a "festering" hatred of the small-town Maryland newspaper opened fire in the newsroom, killing Rob Hiaasen and four other Gazette employees a day earlier. The author remembered his brother as one of the most gentle and funny people he knew.

"How do you even predict, or foresee or prepare yourself for that kind of madness and that kind of eruption," Carl Hiaasen told CNN on Friday. "I'm sure Rob was aware that this guy had been tweeting and had had this gripe. But you can't let it cripple you every day going into work with a sense of being haunted by it. You go in and put out a newspaper. That's your job, and that's what The Capital Gazette staff did yesterday despite this horrible, horrible tragedy."

A former award-winning feature writer with the Baltimore Sun and Palm Beach Post, Rob Hiaasen joined The Capital Gazettte as an assistant editor in 2010 and wrote a Sunday column. He had also taught at the University of Maryland.

"He would have been so proud," Carl Hiaasen told CNN. "He would have been so, so proud of them."

The elder Hiaasen said he and his brother had discussed the rhetoric and hatred toward journalists. "But we also reminded ourselves in our whole lifetimes and careers, working journalists have never been at the top of the popularity list," said Hiaasen. "If you are doing your job as a journalist, you are usually pissing somebody off. You are getting out information that some people don't want to be revealed."

Hiaasen said his brother spent his whole "gifted career" as a journalist and believed profoundly in the craft and mission of serving the public's right to know the news.

The Palm Beach Post said Hiaasen left his mark at the paper for decades to come, "not as a journalistic wrecking ball but as someone who could attend the details of the tragic and funny and convey them with honesty and compassion." The paper said Hiassen was well-loved and will be remembered as a genuinely nice guy in addition to being someone who possessed great professional talent.

"We called him Big Rob because he was so tall, but it was his remarkable heart and humor that made him larger than all of us," recalled the Carl Hiaasen on his Facebook page. "Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers tonight. Hug your loved ones like there's no tomorrow."

Watch the CNN interview with Carl Hiaasen below:

The chaotic scene outside The Capital Gazette after a gunman opened fire Thursday, killing five people, including the younger brother of South Florida author Carl Hiaasen. Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images.