I don’t want people to think that life is good in prison.
But if I have to be in prison, I prefer to be at San Quentin, working at the San Quentin News. While newsrooms are dying all across America, a little-known newsroom inside San Quentin is thriving.
Sitting at my desk while staring at my computer screen, a fellow journalist walks over and asks, “Why do you do what you do?”
I could smell the aroma of coffee brewing. I could hear the phone ringing. I looked around and I saw a line of people manning computer stations, while others were standing near the TV awaiting the legal fate of former President Donald Trump.
I looked at the reporter and pondered the question.
We’re not the kind of journalists who swarm around Washington, D.C. Our toughest beat may be the prison’s Protestant chapel. We don’t cover a lot of hard news. We cover symposiums, graduations, concerts. With that said, we’re an award-winning publication that has a tremendous impact on the incarcerated people we serve.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said he wants to scale up our operations. Our reporting staff could eventually go from 20 to 40. Not exactly the time for a final obituary here.
The SQNews has been around since the 1940s. We’re the first incarcerated-run newspaper publication in the country. We publish an acclaimed monthly newspaper that spans 24 pages. In our newsroom, we don’t have correctional officers watching our every move or standing above us on a gun rail.
SQNews has a diverse group of reporters with lively personalities. There is a semblance of humanity and normalcy in our newsroom.
Joshua Strange is our senior editor. He loves to tell corny jokes and has the smile of a game show host.
“Being in the newsroom keeps my professional skills sharp and helps me feel like I’m contributing to something positive and meaningful – serving my time instead of just enduring my time,” he said.
Strange often meets with the managing editor and layout to help capture the right look for a story. He is always ready to teach.
“For me this is a labor of love, an opportunity to fulfill our mission to advance social justice and improve public safety through our reporting,” he said. “We have a good group of guys in here that are sincere about transforming their life for the better and helping people along the way.”
Juan Haines is an award-winning journalist who spent 15 years of his career at SQNews. He is almost 5 feet tall but moves like he’s 10.
“l got big plans for you,” he looked up at me and said when I first joined the team two years ago.
My first year on the job I shadowed Haines as he covered stories. I listened as he talked on the phone and conducted one meeting after the next. Even when he didn’t know what he was talking about, it still sounded like he did.
Joe Garcia was the journalist who inspired me most before he moved on. “You’re going to be my protégé,” he told me.
Garcia believed he was God’s gift to the pen. He also believed every story he wrote deserved to be on the front page with his picture next to it. I liked his cockiness. He taught me how to be a SQ Journalism Guild chairperson. He showed me how to believe in myself a little bit more.
I never dreamt of being a journalist. I didn’t go to journalism school. I was content working in the main kitchen washing dishes, scrambling eggs, stirring oatmeal and climbing my way up the corporate ladder to 37 cents an hour as lead cook. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Garcia talked me into becoming a cell front correspondent.
I would come back from work covered in dish water and oatmeal and I would walk by Garcia’s cell. “Still working in the kitchen,” he’d say, shaking his head. “We got to get you out of there.”
He eventually introduced me to Yukari Kane and Shaheen Pasha, co-founders of the Prison Journalism Project. I started writing for them. And before I knew it, I was an award-winning journalist.
I started my career on my bunk in my prison cell, using a spinach green Neo typewriter fueled by three AA batteries. Working on my own from a small archaic cell made it hard to stay motivated. But one year later, Garcia convinced me to accept the job at SQNews.
Garcia introduced me to an office with 12 computers, a conference table and a whole team of reporters.
Rahsaan “New York” Thomas was there on my first day on the job. “Finally came out of that scullery, huh, son,” the former Ear Hustle podcast co-host said. “I been trying to get you out of that scullery for years and all of a sudden Joe Garcia asks, and you come.”
Thomas paroled in early 2023. He currently serves as the executive director of Empowerment Avenue, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering the professional growth of writers who have been incarcerated. But before he left, he taught me to be a go-getter.
“You gotta get your bylines up, son,” he said. He encouraged me to write every day, including for other publications. Eventually, I signed up with Empowerment Avenue.
Another SQNews journalist, Kevin Sawyer, taught me what it looked like to capture an important story. He wrote about the 50th anniversary of the murder of revolutionary activist George Jackson, who was incarcerated at San Quentin. Sawyer wanted to interview Mike Loftin, a former prison guard who knew Jackson. He solicited the help of retired Public Information Officer Capt. Sam Robinson to set up the interview.
Robinson brought his cellphone to the newsroom and Sawyer interviewed Loftin while on speaker phone. The entire newsroom was listening.
“Mike referred to himself as a prison guard” and said he “wasn’t no damn correctional officer,” Sawyer said.
Loftin gave a harrowing account of how he waited for his friend to get off work at San Quentin and meet him at a bar. He never showed up. Later, Loftin found out three guards got their throats cut and his friend was among the dead.
It’s these types of newsroom events and the characters involved that have a tremendous impact on keeping me motivated. Other reporters often help me see things in myself that I can’t see.
We can’t go out for drinks after work, but we can attend AA meetings. We eat together, do yoga or go for a run.
Being at SQNews puts me in a position to engage with and have an impact on the incarcerated and the public. It is a great place to be for anyone who wants to succeed in the workplace in the outside world.
We have a team of professionals who volunteer their time. John Eagan is a retired Associated Press reporter we call “the General.” He’s been around over a decade. He taught me how to cut the fluff and write a great lede.
“Tell me what this story is about in five words or less,” Eagan often said.
Tourists are often intrigued by the professionalism we demonstrate.
We boast a zero percent recidivism rate for the dozens that have worked here.
When you’re serving life in prison, there is no better place to be than in San Quentin at the SQNews. Capturing history as it happens and feeling inspired to pursue rehabilitation.
I often read letters to the editor, in which incarcerated people write and talk about how SQNews fills them with hope, pride and a reason to be better.
I have never been part of a community before or served a real purpose in my life. That’s what the newsroom offers.
It offers humanity, community and purpose.
“That’s why I do what I do,” I said to my fellow journalist, finally activating the cursor on my computer screen.
You can’t write a final obituary for that.