The San Quentin News

From the stories of imprisonment to redemption, the men of the San Quentin News remind us of the importance of uplifting incarcerated voices and proving just how rehabilitative the tool of journalism can be.

The award-winning San Quentin News (SQN) published inside the walls of San Quentin State Prison, is the only inmate-produced and edited prison newspaper in California, and one of the few left in the world. With both a print and online publication presence, the SQN prints 30,000 newspapers each month and distributes them to all 35 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) prisons, four juvenile facilities, and multiple universities, public libraries, and outside donors throughout the nation. While the paper is not funded by the state of California, but instead by outside grants and foundations, including Reva and David Logan Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation, the SQN is one of the few prison newspapers read by people on the outside.

The SQN offers a glimpse into the world of prison journalism and incarcerated men’s often-overlooked stories and struggles. While the purpose of the newspaper is “written by the incarcerated” and “advancing social justice,” according to its mission statement, it seems to go beyond that, as it opens the dialogue for a bigger conversation regarding how prison journalism is being utilized as a rehabilitative tool for these men. In being granted the opportunity to write, the men of the SQN team can process their past decisions through a creative outlet, but more importantly, become equipped with a set of skills that allow them to move forward with their future. Despite these men being completely stripped of their freedom and isolated from the rest of society, there remains one aspect that is still free – their voices. 

On March 24, 1800, the world of prison journalism first originated inside the walls of a New York prison, when William Keteltas, a lawyer turned debtor, first published Forlorn Hope. Despite its short life, as it ceased publication the same year, Forlorn Hope would act as a transformative turning point for American prison journalism in the coming 200 years. Since Forlorn Hope, “over 450 prison newspapers have been published from U.S. prisons,” according to Journalism Storage. In 1915, men at Wyoming State Penitentiary published J-A-B-S, a magazine that offered “a bit of news and plenty of commentary,” writes JSTOR Daily’s Kate McQueen. Other publications include the Long Line Writer, The Hour Glass, La Roca, and The Angolite, one of the most famous prison newspapers in history. Founded in 1952 at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola,The Angolite offered a particularly new voice that was more readily accessible to the public than others. Intended to both educate and entertain its consumers, both free and committed, The Angolite, covered the penitentiary’s noteworthy events, while maintaining “a more issue-based advocacy role,” according to Kalen M.A. Churcher, author of “Journalism Behind Bars: The Louisiana State Penitentiary’s Angolite Magazine.” With about two million people incarcerated in the United States, a 500% increase over the last 40 years, one would expect a significant increase in prison journalism, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as only a handful of publications still exist. One publication that has survived the suppression and dismissal of incarcerated voices has been the SQN

To properly discuss the SQN, it’s important to look back at the institution that was able to produce such a publication. An institution that has been riddled with controversy, violence, and the reputation of being home to the “worst of the worst” inmates. In July of 1852, barely three years after California became a state, the gates of San Quentin State Prison opened.

To contain the rapid crime that was a result of the Gold Rush’s influx of immigration, the State’s response was to build California’s first prison. Originally, San Quentin housed both male and female inmates until 1933, when California opened the first women’s prison in Tehachapi. As the oldest penal institution in California, San Quentin resides on 432 acres known as Pointe San Quentin in Marin County, just 12 miles north of San Francisco. In 1989, San Quentin stepped down from a level four maximum security prison to a level two minimum security one, a turning point for the prison’s reputation. According to the CDCR website, the institution itself is made up of four large cell blocks (West, South, North, and East block), one maximum security cell block (the Adjustment Center or “the Hole”), Central Health Care Service Building, a medium security dorm and a minimum security firehouse. San Quentin is also home to California’s only gas chamber and death row for male inmates, with about 700 men on death row, although methods of execution have changed over time.

In 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered a moratorium on the state’s death penalty, ultimately leading San Quentin to shut down and indefinitely close its gas and lethal injection chambers. As of November 2022, San Quentin incarcerates a population of 3,292 inmates and offers more than 300 ongoing rehabilitative programs, a stark contrast to the other 35 CDCR prisons that barely have a dozen. A few of San Quentin’s rehabilitative programs include recreational sports teams, drug and alcohol treatment, and the Journalism Guild, an extension of the SQN that teaches inmates the journalistic basics of how to report and write stories for the newspaper.

The origin of the SQN is one that was no stranger to adversity or difficult beginnings, and one that is highly explored in William Drummond’s book, “Prison Truth: The Story of the San Quentin News.” A longtime journalist, Professor at the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and adviser for the SQN, Drummond writes, “San Quentin warden Clinton T. Duffy wanted to quell rumors in the cell blocks, so he had the prison create its own newspaper.” With this, the first edition of the SQN was published on December 10, 1940. In 1982, as a result of Duffy’s death and the growing tensions between inmate journalists and the CDC (the R in CDCR was added in 2004), the SQN would go on a 20-year hiatus.

Drummond writes, “The conflicts became especially acute during the turmoil of the changing racial demographics within the CDC and the polarized politics that created tensions between inmate journalists and the warden’s office.” Drummond states that it wasn’t just the SQN that had their issues with prison management and what they considered censorship, but other California prison publications such as the Vacavalley Star and the Soledad Star News. By 1990, prison newspapers and journalism ceased to exist across the nation, with few exceptions, such as The Angolite which remained active. “The San Quentin News was the last of the seven sanctioned California publications to stop printing,” writes Drummond. As a result, an underground newspaper, titled Outlaw, started to appear and circulate throughout the walls of San Quentin for years. By 2006, San Quentin’s warden, Robert L. Ayers Jr. had initiated an immediate removal of the Outlaw, as it was deemed contraband, but later decided against its removal after reading the magazine. In June 2008, just two years after becoming warden, Ayers decided to bring back the SQN. Drummond writes, “5,000 copies were printed and each copy was four pages long and printed in black ink on gold-colored paper.” 

Today, Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s public information officer of 14 years, is responsible for ensuring that the information published in the newspaper accurately depicts San Quentin. The CDCR, specifically the Office of Public and Employee Communications, also has input on the content of the publication. Despite a 45-day suspension of the publication in 2014 due to a miscommunication over a published photograph, the SQN has been running ever since. 

The 24-page paper print edition of the SQN resembles any other paper that’s published on the outside, only it reads “written by the incarcerated” at the top alongside the monthly inmate population of San Quentin. Printed in color by Marin Sun Printing, the paper includes profiles, a sports section, and highlights on San Quentin-related events. One aspect of the paper, the crossword puzzle section, was introduced in 2015 by then-layout designer, Jonathan Chiu. Chiu, who was sentenced to 50 years to life, arrived at San Quentin in 2014 and joined the SQN team in 2015. Before his arrival, Chiu had read the SQN while incarcerated at another California prison, which ultimately led to his decision of wanting to be a part of “something great.”

With no prior journalistic or layout knowledge, Chiu had the idea for a crossword puzzle after realizing that all other outside publications had one. “I realized every paper, like the Chronicle or New York Times, had crosswords in their paper,” said Chiu. “I wanted to put something original to the paper besides reporting.” 

One of Chiu’s crossword puzzles in the San Quentin News.
(Oct. 2022 Edition 149)

Chiu explained that his process for creating the crossword puzzles would first start with a theme, and would go from there to find the corresponding words that had the same amount of letters. “I started this while I was inside, so there wasn’t a class I took or something,” said Chiu. “I just made it up as I went along.”

In 2018, Chiu’s life sentence would be commuted by Gov. Brown, and by 2020 he would become a free man. Despite being free from the place where he was formerly incarcerated, Chiu would go back to San Quentin to continue his crossword puzzle creations. “Prison for me was like a really bad ex, so I needed some time and space before we could actually be together again,” Chiu said with a laugh. “And as long as we don’t spend a night together, we’re all good.”

Every Sunday since, he visits the prison newsroom, and although he no longer creates the crossword puzzles for the paper, the SQN reruns Chiu’s crossword puzzles in every publication. Chiu has also become an executive assistant for Impact Justice, a non-profit organization that helps others with life pre and post-incarceration.

“Just because I was surrounded by four walls, that didn’t define who I was or what I could do, and I was able to achieve a lot of stuff inside,” said Chiu. “Yes I did a horrible thing and landed in a horrible place, which I deserve, but that shouldn’t dictate who I can be or become.” 

The SQN is produced in the prison’s Media Center. At first glance, it looks like your average newsroom, with about eight or ten workstations that line the walls, and a big conference table in the middle. At second glance, one is reminded of where they are, as you see men dressed in prison light blue, with bright yellow letters that read “CDCR PRISONER” on the back. The newsroom walls are plastered with hundreds of past print editions of the newspaper and a big gold and blue banner that reads “San Quentin News.” With video cameras, television sets, whiteboards, and about 18 non-internet computers in the newsroom, the Media Center offers a creative escape, both physically and mentally, to the men of San Quentin. And it’s not just writing that takes place in the Media Center, but a whole multimedia array of other journalistic opportunities.

Forward This Productions, a video team of about six incarcerated San Quentin men, produce and edit videos that cover ranging subject matters from deportation to mental health from an incarcerated point of view. San Quentin TV, another video team that predominantly focuses on producing content for the CDCR, is based in the Media Center. Lastly, the Media Center is home to Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated podcast that aired in 2017, and one of the first-ever podcasts created and produced in prison. Co-founded by Bay Area artist and outside volunteer Nigel Poor alongside Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, both of whom were incarcerated at the time, Ear Hustle tells the stories, obstacles, and realities of life inside prison and out.

In 2019, former SQN sports reporter, Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, joined Ear Hustle as a co-host inside San Quentin. Thomas, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, a writer for the Marshall Project, and the co-founder of Prison Renaissance, had his 55½-years-to-life sentence commuted by Gov. Newsom in January 2022. In a January episode of Ear Hustle, “Ear Hustle Extra: A Call from Sacramento,” Thomas reflected on receiving that phone call.

With a monthly printing cost and distribution of $5,000 and another $1,000 to maintain the website, it takes a small village to run the publication. With a staff of about 17 incarcerated staff members, about a dozen advisers, and several volunteers, such as professors and former journalists, every story is a collaborative one. One of those advisers, Professor Drummond, is responsible for bringing a group of Berkeley graduate students to the prison every week. Originally teaching an introductory class to journalism at San Quentin in 2012, Drummond was approached by Juan Haines, then managing editor and now senior editor of the newspaper, to become a full-time adviser for the paper. Arnulfo Garcia, editor-in-chief at the time, and Haines had the idea to expand the newspaper distribution beyond San Quentin.

Noticing that there was not enough manpower involved to make a change at the SQN, Drummond decided to bring in a group of his graduate students to help edit articles, interview outside sources, and research the internet depending on an inmate’s story. Despite the SQN website being published in 2010, it wasn’t until 2014 when Berkeley students worked with inmates to code, add meta tags, and upload all of the past 100 editions of the paper online since 2008. Due to a lack of internet inside the prison, it was up to the students on the outside to complete this task, one that would not be finalized until 2016. In “Prison Truth” Drummond explains that the two-year struggle to overhaul the website so that it could be a portal into the world of incarceration was a significant turning point. “The new website was the point of entry into the transformation of the San Quentin News into a small media company,” writes Drummond. In speaking with Drummond, he explained that it’s not only the inmates who benefit from the student’s help. “What I found was that the students get so much more out of this,” said Drummond. “Because it’s not just that they learn how to edit, but they learn how to relate to people who are from different social and economic backgrounds.” 

Every morning at around 6:30 a.m. Jesse Vasquez would arrive at the newsroom to start his 13-hour work shift. As editor-in-chief, his opening responsibilities included cleaning the bathroom, sweeping and mopping the floors, and brewing a fresh pot of coffee.

Next, it was time to watch the daily news and start sorting out the source material for the upcoming week. As editor-in-chief, Vasquez oversaw a staff of 18 journalists and their work. Only it wasn’t your typical newsroom setting, and it wasn’t your typical editor-in-chief and staff relationship, it was the San Quentin News, and both Vasquez and his team of reporters were incarcerated men at San Quentin State Prison. 

The story of 39-year-old Jesse Vasquez begins in 2001 when he was only 17 years old. Vasquez, facing three life sentences for charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault, had spent all his formative adult years behind bars. After being transferred to 12 different institutions throughout his life, Vasquez arrived in San Quentin in November 2016, ultimately making him the first-ever Southern California Hispanic at San Quentin since 1982. 

In 1982, the California Department of Corrections separated the Northern and Southern Hispanics due to the growing rivalry between gangs, forcing the Southerners to Folsom State Prison and the Northerners to San Quentin. Upon arrival, Vasquez soon realized there were no other Mexicans like him, an experience driven by isolation and a personal road to redemption that forced him to join college programs and other activities. One of those programs was the Journalism Guild, which would result in Vasquez becoming a staff writer for the SQN in 2017. 

“When I got hired on to the newsroom it was interesting to me to be interrogated by a bunch of guys in blue because I had never been used to that,” said Vasquez over a Zoom call. “But it was like they were bringing me into their safe haven.” 

Four months later, Vasquez would become the paper’s managing editor, and by 2018 he would become editor-in-chief. In between sorting through source material and brainstorming article ideas, Vasquez’s days consisted of editing stories, proofing stories, and people management. 

“Management is a big component of being editor-in-chief, and being in a prison you’re in a fishbowl, so you can’t go anywhere,” said Vasquez. “So how do you deal with conflict resolution in an environment where conflict is usually resolved by violence?” 

Contrary to your typical newsroom on the outside, in San Quentin, no inmate can be fired and there’s merely no escaping the difficulties that may arise between colleagues. “You have to confront every problem head-on,” said Vasquez. One way the SQN staff ensures a healthy environment and camaraderie is a team-building and bonding opportunity that takes place every Wednesday, called “Grown Man Wednesday.” 

“We’d open a safe space, with all the staff, all the editorial board, and we’d sit there and talk about the issues of the day,” said Vasquez. “Our personal issues, inner relationship issues, work conflicts, schedule conflicts, whatever was frustrating people.” 

Vasquez was also in charge of reminding his staff of the importance and impact that the work they were producing had, as well as the privilege that was granted to speak on behalf of the prison. As for what topics the publication would cover, the SQN had formed its mission statement and core values, just like any other publication on the outside. Vasquez explained that the publication was editorially independent, and aimed to incorporate a change to the typical mainstream media narrative of the incarcerated. 

“For us, it’s not about reporting on prison gangs, drugs, corruption, and police scandals,” said Vasquez. “Our mission is to humanize the incarcerated and show society what’s not being shown on mainstream media about who’s incarcerated.”

In a 2018 op-ed posted to The Washington Post, Vasquez explained how the newsroom forced him to confront his racial biases and concluded with the hopes that society eventually can do the same, as well as confront their biases towards the incarcerated. 

“The teacher of the weekly journalism class said reporting makes a difference because it informs people about the world and the options out there,” wrote Vasquez. “For a long time, I did not know there was any reality other than the one I knew.”

When asked how he feels about people who may have reservations about journalism being utilized as a rehabilitative tool for those incarcerated, Vasquez explained that he never tries to convince people to alter their views, but instead wishes for them to recognize just how beneficial journalism can be while incarcerated. 

“If we took the amount of time to give journalism, storytelling, filmmaking, whatever method we wanna use for rehabilitation, for introspection, storytelling, to finding authenticity,” said Vasquez. “If we gave the same 50 years for that methodology instead of this broken criminal justice system.”

Vasquez shares that if someone can discover a rehabilitative outlet, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it might be the same solution for someone else.

“There’s no cookie-cutter solution for anybody,” said Vasquez. “There’s a lot of naysayers out there that’ll say journalism and storytelling don’t make a difference, but journalism and storytelling is what keeps us locked up. It’s those false narratives that get perpetuated about the incarcerated.”

With 89 former staff members of the SQN, Vasquez shares that all 89 men have turned their lives around once paroled, with a zero-percent reentry rate.

“We don’t have anybody who is not doing something either with at-risk youth, cease-fire programs, running nonprofits with reentry housing, battered women shelters, and domestic violence groups,” Vasquez said. “Nobody has come out of the media center and not made it to where they’re making an impact in their community.”

Despite society being riddled with stereotypes and stigmas when it comes to the incarcerated, the men of the SQN aim to show the redemptive side of incarceration, and although “no incarceration is good incarceration,” according to Vasquez, there are redemptive values to it. 

“For us, it’s about highlighting the 80-year-old man who graduated with his GED or the 65-year-old who ran on a thousand-mile club and finished 26.2 miles in a marathon in five and a half hours,” reiterated Vasquez. “We want to tell these stories that number one otherwise would not be told, and number two, we want to have something for posterity.”

As a result of Vasquez and each member of his staff facing life sentences, the works that were published would later go on to mean so much more than a simple article in a prison newspaper, instead an opportunity for each man to leave a legacy through his words. 

“All of us on my staff had life sentences and we were never meant to come home,” said Vasquez. “So every byline we wrote was a testament to the fact that we were still there and we were trying to make an impact on our community,” said Vasquez. 

Vasquez also explained that certain articles and photographs served as memories for families and friends of the men who passed away while incarcerated. While accepting his fate of life in prison, Vasquez was content with the SQN being all that he had to his name, but in August of 2018, Vasquez’s life took an unexpected turn. He would receive a phone call from Gov. Brown that his three life sentences were going to be commuted, which would ultimately lead to Vasquez’s parole in 2019.

The San Quentin News on Vasquez’s parole. (July 2019 Edition 118)

“Imagine you’re driving right over a bridge and your car falls through the bridge, and you know you’re going to drown. You’re sinking fast, death is imminent, and you’re not coming out of this,” said Vasquez on how he felt when he received that phone call. “But somehow, something happens, and it was all a dream.”

From being face to face with death his entire life, to then a second shot at life in a matter of seconds, Vasquez had a difficult time processing what his ultimate freedom would entail. “There were two things that went through my head,” said Vasquez. “The first was, I was ready to die in prison, and now they’re going to let me out, what the hell am I going to do? Number two was, ‘I gotta make it count.’” 

And Vasquez did just that. “I got out on a Wednesday, and that Friday I was already feeding the homeless and doing community intervention programs,” shared Vasquez. “The following Tuesday I was already in the Oakland Unified School District trying to be a counselor and a volunteer.” 

Vasquez would then go on to work for several nonprofits, becoming a project director for one of them, and then transition to become a certified peer support specialist through the district attorney’s office, and a youth gun violence prevention counselor. 

In 2020, a full-circle moment would happen for Vasquez, as he would go back to San Quentin to help with the production of the paper due to the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They couldn’t produce a paper inside, and they needed somebody to do layout, research, and logistics,” said Vasquez. “Then I had one of the funders tell me, “what if I gave you a salary to make this your full-time job?” 

As a result, Vasquez would become the Executive Director for Friends of San Quentin, a nonprofit organization that seeks “to humanize those stigmatized by incarceration and to empower them to build and run their own media platforms so that their true voices are heard,” according to the organization’s website. 

Since then, Vasquez has raised over $600,000 to support incarcerated-run media programs and even brought the opportunity of prison journalism to the women of Folsom State Prison.  

“The first thing I wanted to do was take the program to the women’s facility and give them equal access and opportunity,” said Vasquez. “Every Saturday I drive two and half hours to teach the women journalism so that they can have source material, volunteers, and access just like the men.”

As for what’s next for Vasquez, he has plans for a project called “Media Center-in-a-Box,” which would duplicate the San Quentin newsroom to prisons nationwide, such as Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. With an urgent need for incarcerated voices, Vasquez believes Media Center-in-a-Box will grant the opportunity for those to share their stories, regardless of their incarceration, race, or gender.

“I think that if we don’t increase the amount of voices of the incarcerated we’re going to continue to be marginalized,” said Vasquez. “We’re going to continue to be looked down upon and they’re going to continue talking about us without us in the conversation.”

The stories of struggle and redemption of Jesse Vasquez and Jonathan Chiu, as well as the incarcerated men of the SQN, act as proof that journalism and writing not only uplift the voices of these men but allow for a regained sense of purpose. By actively involving themselves in the world of journalism, through writing, communicating, and processing their stories, the men of the SQN become equipped with a set of skills they lacked prior. The publication itself, and the experiences and knowledge gained along the way, ultimately serve as the sole purpose for what prison was originally designed and intended for, rehabilitation. For a successful and uplifting future for incarcerated voices, society must reevaluate how they view the incarcerated and recognize that despite the circumstances, these men have stories and voices that deserve to be heard.