Sara Vigneri, The Muhlenberg Weekly
photo: Mariana Ortega Rivera
Journalism and incarceration are not necessarily a common pairing. Sara Vigneri, a faculty advisor to The Muhlenberg Weekly in Northern Pennsylvania who teaches at the Lehigh County Jail, believes the two belong together.
She explained how teaching journalism in jails and prisons empowers people who are often silenced during a panel at MediaFest 25.
Prison journalism in the U.S. has a long and often overlooked history dating back to the 1800s. But most Americans are unaware of its reach. Publications like California’s San Quentin News — run entirely by incarcerated journalists — cover topics ranging from prison art to policy failures.
“They’ll write about a guy who’s been painting for 20 years, or about how expensive phone calls are, or whether parole actually exists — spoiler, it doesn’t,” Vigneri said. “They report on speakers, programs [and] even the food, which is a huge issue, especially for people on restrictive diets.”
But Vigneri quickly noted the difference between journalism and personal writing.
“Creative writing is important — it gives people a way to process trauma. But I love teaching journalism because it’s for an audience,” she said. “If you’re only writing for yourself, that’s not really journalism.”
The logistics are difficult, said Vigneri, noting that people in prisons don’t have access to the same resources as a traditional newsroom.
“You couldn’t look up CDC stats. You couldn’t even research your own prison. No email. No downloads,” Vigneri said. “Just imagine doing your job as a journalist without the internet. It’s really impossible.”
For many inmates, the journalism classroom in the jail can be the one place they feel safe, she said.
“One of my students said our class was the only time he felt like he could relax and just talk,” she said. “He said, ‘you don’t know what it means to talk to someone who’s not in a prison uniform. Just wearing street clothes makes a difference.’”
A former creative writing instructor at a coed prison in Georgia, Ana Gascon echoed the same sentiment from her seat during the presentation.
“[My students] told me over and over that that two-hour slot once a week was the best experience they had in prison,” Gascon said. “You get a chance to humanize people on the inside because on the outside, people look in and think they’re monsters.”
But it’s not easy. “You’ll hear things that are hard to hear,” Gascon said. “One student told me that when he was a kid, his father used to run over his fingers with a truck to punish him. There are no trigger warnings in these classrooms.”
Despite the trauma and logistical roadblocks, journalism education in prison also serves a practical function, said Vigneri. Many correctional systems are mandated — or at least encouraged — to provide job training, and journalism fits into that.
Programs such as the Prison Journalism Project and the Pollen Initiative are expanding the possibilities. At San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, a new media center, complete with desks and computers, is under construction.
To teach in prisons, educators often undergo specialized training — including the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program — which helps prepare them for the realities of correctional education.
“It’s not just about getting through security,” Vigneri said. “It’s about understanding trauma, handling difficult conversations and making sure you’re not doing more harm.”
That’s a constant balance, especially when deciding whether to publish student work. “These are important stories,” Vigneri said. “But I never want to cause more pain, especially for families dealing with grief or loss.”
When a fellow cellmate committed suicide the day of a journalism class, the students inside felt the need to report on it, said Vigneri. One of the students wrote the article about what happened by interviewing his cellmates and the people on the floor who were there.
“It’s something that you will not hear this story anywhere else because no one else has reported it and no one else can report it,” Vigneri said. “But at the same time, I don’t know the person’s family. I can’t fact-check it. So I didn’t publish it. I decided that we were going to keep all these stories as an underground press.”
Despite the risks, the rewards are undeniable. It didn’t need wide publication to matter. It mattered because it was written, and read and honored Vigneri said.
Professor of journalism at UC Berkeley, and volunteer at San Quentin since 2012, Bill Drummond shared their success with the incarcerated people, “until recently, it was true that none of the people who had been involved with the San Quentin News had ever gone back to prison after they were paroled.”
Drummond recalls two inmates with huge success stories; Joe Garcia who now writes for The New Yorker, and Steve Brooks who has a full-time job with Bay City News despite still being behind bars.
Brooks was selected as a California Local News Fellow, a program UC Burkley administrates. He is the first incarcerated person to be accepted into the program. Drummond thinks, “Steve is the only incarcerated writer in the country who is full-time employed by a mainstream news organization.”
Whether it’s called rogue journalism or prison reporting, the work being done in places like a local county jail is journalism in its purest form — giving a platform to the unheard.
“It is life-changing for everybody,” Vigneri said, “but it’s also so, so powerful.”
Tagged under: ACP, CMA, Prison Journalism, SPJ, SPJ News, San Quentin News, mediafest25