Approximately 2 million people are detained in U.S. jails and prisons today — a 500 percent increase since the 1970s. But these perspectives are often overlooked in mainstream journalism.
Working with incarcerated writers can help fill gaps in coverage by offering lived experiences to stories about mass incarceration, criminal justice reform, public safety, and beyond. The Prison Journalism Project, a nonprofit that trains incarcerated writers to be journalists, is an organization bringing the voices of incarcerated writers to the forefront.
To gain insight on working with incarcerated writers, the Institute reached out to Mason Bryan, senior editor at the Prison Journalism Project, for tips on building writer-editor trust, “empathetic editing,” and navigating the safety concerns of their writers.
How do you build a trusted writer-editor relationship in a non-traditional newsroom setting?
Bryan: We think about this question every day and have collected our learning in our “Guide to empathetic editing.” I’m not sure we’ve figured out the perfect formula, because trust-building is both a science and an art.
In general, I would say that the same principles apply regardless of what kind of newsroom you’re in. Be kind, humble, and generous. Address writers by their name. Don’t pander; don’t bullshit. Justify your decisions in plain terms. Keep the focus on the thing you’re trying to improve together — the story!
This may seem like obvious stuff — and for some people it comes naturally. But for most of us, it’s actually quite difficult to get good at. You have to practice. You have to be confident but not too confident, gentle but not too gentle, you know?
Walk us through the typical life cycle of a story. How do you manage multiple rounds of edits with limited access to your writers?
Bryan: Let me put it this way: PJP is not a breaking news operation. It can take months for a story to go from pitch or submission to publication. For the most part, we work via prison e-comm platforms and snail mail, both of which can be unpredictable and unreliable. But we’ve gotten used to the pace of things and try to work knowing that things will not happen fast.
I should note that all of our correspondence is handled by our writer relations team, which is staffed entirely by people impacted by incarceration. The work requires an incredible degree of sensitivity to and knowledge about a whole range of issues, from state laws around paying writers inside to subtleties about how a word or phrase or question will land with prison staff or the writers. They also play a vital role in building community among our writers.
Our editing process relies on two key strategies: The first is [in bracket edits in the story draft], where we’ll provide feedback, ask questions, or explain an edit we made. The second is the editorial memo, in which we lay out, as clearly and encouragingly as we can, what we’ve done to a story and where we think it should go. We take this really seriously because it’s our primary way of connecting with the writer. These can be quite long and involved, but we are always striving to make the writer feel that we are on a team. Both of us bring expertise and experience to the table, and the best stories are products of that team working well together and trusting each other.
Safety is a growing concern for journalists around the world, and incarcerated writers face many additional challenges and concerns. Can you share how PJP developed the 10 guiding principles for keeping your writers safe?
Bryan: We take the safety of our writers seriously. These guiding principles developed out of an obvious fact of our work: No one is taking a bigger risk in doing journalism behind bars than the writers inside. The First Amendment gives incarcerated writers the right to express themselves, but they aren’t free physically. Reprisal and other serious consequences are a risk that comes with doing critical journalism inside.
To make this concrete: One of our longtime contributors, Tariq MaQbool, wrote a story last year about burial rites for Muslims in his New Jersey prison. The piece took aim at the state prison system for not having robust processes to deal with the bodies of Muslims who passed away inside according to the dictates of their religion.
Several months after the story ran, Tariq’s cell was searched in a raid on trumped up charges. Around the same time, two other writers affiliated with PJP — one of whom had also written a critical story about a New Jersey prison — also had their cells raided. Fortunately, nothing too serious came of any of this. But there were psychological costs for Tariq, who was held in limbo for several months waiting to hear about possible sanctions. No one can say for sure whether this was retaliation, but it gives you a flavor of what it could look like.
This spring, the Prison Journalism Project released a journalism handbook for incarcerated writers. Can you describe how that came together and what the impact has been on your writers and editors?
Bryan: The handbook is the brainchild of our co-founders Yukari Kane and Shaheen Pasha. Having both taught journalism in prisons, they saw a need for what is essentially a journalism textbook geared toward the realities of writers inside.
Doing journalism inside is not the same as doing it outside; different rules and risks apply. The main aspect of the handbook is a self-paced certificate course, which encourages writers to read the chapters — about personal essays or about news stories — then apply the knowledge in a homework assignment that is turned in and graded by our team of editor coaches.
Our first cohort of students is working through the program now, and we’re learning a lot about what’s working and what isn’t. Some students are off to the races. For others, the handbook is frankly too hard. So we’ve been working on a revised version that better meets more students where they’re at.