"Criminal" on prison newspapers
"Criminal" on prison newspapers
Monday reading #8
Monday Reading is my weekly recommendation of something I’ve found thought-provoking or fascinating. Sometimes it is about food or music or projects I care about supporting. Sometimes I do not send it on Monday. Please share with anyone who might like the vibes!!
Criminal is the only podcast I listen to regularly. I usually catch up on episodes on long drives or at the gym or the dentist, a li’l treat for those tasks. When I listened to an episode about prison newspapers that also uses one of my favorite historical sources, I thought I should tell you about it!
Episode 226, The Prison Newspaper, is about the Nash News, produced at the Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina. The episode also details the history of prison newspapers, which first appeared in the early 19th century. and describes some of the longest running ones in the country, which are typically, perhaps unsurprisingly, at prisons that house those incarcerated for life (e.g., the Louisiana State Prison, also known as Angola).
The episode also interviews the managing editor of Reveal Digital’s Voices from the Inside, a collection of American prison newspapers, 1800s-present. The collection, which is open-access on JSTOR, has more than 12,000 titles. JSTOR Daily bas run dozens of essays & stories based on the newspapers in the collection.
The Criminal episode, as I said, focuses on the Nash News, which you can read on JSTOR. Here’s an interview with its editor, Philip Vance Smith, II, & a bill he and others wrote for the North Carolina legislature that would open life sentences to the possibility of parole.
More next week! Happy Tuesday.