 Hi there. Welcome everyone who's here. I've got people in the room. Give me 30 seconds. Let's see if people show up. It's jumping. That's awesome. There we go. They're coming in. I'm going to let a few more trickle in for a minute. I'm not sure if I'm going to show this so well. All right, we're past 20. I feel like that's healthy. All right, everybody. Hello, my name is Gregory. I work at the San Francisco Public Library in the magazines and newspaper center. I set this program up today. I'd like to thank Jesse Vasquez and Yukari Kane for joining us this evening. They're going to give a great presentation. I have some announcements to go through first and then we'll get into our program. This discussion on journalism, coming out of prisons, is part of a larger cohort of programs around this year's one city, one book, which is titled Ear Hustle. The book title comes from podcasts, which was the first podcast created and produced entirely within the prison. It has since been globally lauded for the rare access and perspective it contributes to the conversation around it. So I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the program coming up this Thursday, which is in person at the man library and also streaming online. So the authors of Ear Hustle, Nigel Pore and Erlon Woods will be speaking Thursday, November 3rd, it's 6 to 7 30 p.m. for an auditorium. And that's going to be at the man library again and it will also be streaming if that's how you prefer to join folks. Not to miss evening with Nigel Pore and Erlon Woods. In celebration of that book, this is Ear Hustle. Moderator Piper Kernan is the author of the book, Orange is the New Black. Books will be available at the events. The doors open at 6, the event starts at 6. So that's a picture of the book. Sorry, I didn't transition so well earlier with that. So I'm going to read some information about the program coming up this Thursday. And the last thing we'll do real quickly is I'll read an abbreviated version of the land acknowledgement. This is text developed by the American Indian cultural districts, and it's read at our library commission. So again, I'm going to read an abbreviated text but the full text is there on the screen. The National Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unseated ancestral homelands of the Remitesh Aloni peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional home. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples in which to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Remitesh. So we can get started with the program. As we see from a podcast like your hustle people are interested in stories about the lives of the people and their organizations working hard to get their voices out to the general public. For instance are a tightly regulated environment and I think we're all going to learn a lot tonight about what it means for journalism to be done on this basis. It's my honor to introduce you Karikane and Jesse Vasquez, I'll give short intros and I'll let them say more about their history as they go on. So, Jesse is executive director of friends of San Quentin News, an organization dedicated to elevating the voices and potential of the incarcerated by developing and supporting incarcerated run media projects such as the San Quentin News and forward this production. Quick note, we received the paper San Quentin News at the man library. And you can ask for it on the fifth floor. We also get copies that will be distributed for free on the floor as well. So if you're here on time, you can get one. Yukari is a founder and executive director of prison journalism. She's an author educator and veteran journalist with 20 years of experience. She is a staff writer and foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and lawyers. Welcome to you both thank you so much for coming here, and Jesse and Karik know each other well so I'll let them have a discussion with us. Thanks so much, Craig. Hi everybody thanks for being here. I'm Yukari Kane and as Greg said I'm actually the CEO we just had a title change and and a co founder for prison journalism project. And Jesse and I go way back in fact he is part of the inspiration for PJP I don't know if you knew that Jesse, but he was literally one of my first students. I can't remember five or six years ago when when I started teaching at San Quentin News and and and he was he was a star student kicked ass getting a story published in the Washington Post we got a story published in the Washington Post and really showed me the potential of journalism inside and why it's important and and look where you are now. I thought we would start, you know, since since since San Quentin News is kind of, you know, as part of at least my, my half of the inspiration for prison journals and project to make sense to start with San Quentin News and and what you guys do and and and then what friends of San Quentin News is. Yeah, cool. Thank you, Kari. Yeah, it's always great, you know, when we get a chance to catch up and talk to our community of supporters. So I'm actually grateful for the San Francisco Public Library hosting this evening. For me, San Quentin News was kind of like a lifeline, you know, gave us purpose, you know, for a lot of the incarcerated. It was one of the only outlets of news that we had that actually spoke to like our community needs. For the most part, all of the general news that we were getting wasn't specifically towards our needs. So it was like community based journalism for us. And, you know, we print and distribute within all the California Department of Corrections as you know and the journalism guilt, you know, is our farm team and it was great just having you teach, you know, some of the cohorts there for a couple years and, you know, since then, you know, we've continued to grow and the guys continue to learn and we still have the same manual that we had back then. Awesome, you know, just to be able to consent that legacy and continue to make a difference for our communities. So one of the things that we focus on is just providing news that's relevant for the incarcerated on policies, you know, rehabilitation opportunities that exist even within the confines of the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation. And we also have like the journalism guilt training of future writers to have on staff at the San Quint news. And for me friends of San Quint news, you know, I got promoted to executive director almost a year ago to the day, and it's been a great adventure, you know, trying to build out this organization to help support other incarcerated run media programs across the state and then when the opportunity arises, you know, and other states as well. And it's just great to actually know that we're finally getting, you know, some of those voices out, you know, from behind the walls. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, and as Jesse mentioned, the way I got into it is, is that I started teaching journalism inside for San Quint news. I'd been a business reporter for about 15 years covering technology, covering Apple and Steve Jobs and really some of the wealthiest people in companies in the world. And I, I moved away from that, got into teaching and then one day I got an email saying that San Quint news was looking for a teacher and it just really appended my perspective. I had never covered criminal justice. I never knew anybody who was incarcerated and so it was, you know, I still remember that first, that first visit. You guys were very kind. And, but it really opened my eyes right away to a the, the drive and the ambition in their, the stories that were inside that, you know, that all these issues that people outside care about from, you know, poverty and urban education to, you know, mental health issues, the war on drugs, all of that is so intricately connected to incarceration and, and, and there were amazing stories inside and it really hit me that, you know, I'm not the right person to do them. And, and that my, you know, that the role I could play here is to support through editing through, you know, the network that I've built up in my career and, and, and also the experience that I have as a teacher and so that was the origin for a prison journalism project to, you know, most of our work is done through correspondence because we're a national organization. Our goal is to, to make space for writers, particularly in places that don't have a San Quentin news don't have those opportunities. And, you know, over the past couple of years, we published over 1500 stories from over 500 writers across the country. I think we're at about 37 states right now. And so I really, you know, you guys aren't just the inspiration, but, you know, I feel like, you know, it's, it's complimentary and the problem of criminal justice is so big that it takes all of us, including your hustle to, you know, to shed light in a way that starts to, to make a dent. And, and, you know, I'm wondering if you could, you know, explain a little bit about how journalism, how, how SQL makes journalism happen inside the prisons. It's, it's not as easy now that I'm out on the outside. You know, having been editor in chief and operating within the confines of, you know, the California prominent corrections. We do have a lot of flexibility, but there's nowhere near the amount of resources that I have now, like one of the things that we took for granted was the fact that we have a lot of volunteers, you know, who helped do our source materials and do our research for us and that. So for us journalism has always been like slow. It's like, you know, one of those things where it's on a timely thing we only print once a month, you know, and even that, you know, can sometimes be a challenge because we have to be very methodical and how we approach a story. We have to be very intentional with what we cover because we only have 24 pages to cover it in. We want to make sure that like our stories, you know, serve the community, both in and outside of the prison system, but having like to work with no internet, no access to computer, no access to a phone line, you know, it makes it, you know, that much more rewarding when we do print a good story. And it makes it that much more challenging to actually go through the process, you know, just a fact checking, getting the sources right, getting the right quotes and then having the right editors put their eyes on it. And, you know, for us, it's always a collaboration between like our volunteers, our advisors and, you know, the writers inside being able to, you know, lean on them for like fact checking and sources, and also helping out with the editing and you know, checking their third glance sometimes. So it can be very slow. And just so everybody knows I wanted to help explain how I mean how really amazing. The work is that the staff there does to put the paper together because you know what do you do in a situation where there's no internet I mean you have volunteers who bring in the source material which is often other articles. Ideally primary source materials right and then they use that to write the stories and then what it goes through three layers of editing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's pretty amazing. Just to like think that I mean we did our story for the Washington Post what we went through like seven edits. Yeah. It was like it got to the point where it was like, am I writing alone. Yeah, but it was great that the story came out better. But I think a lot of those safeguards have to do with more like journalistic ethics than they do with like security sometimes. You know, I think one of the things I never ran into the issue of censorship with the department corrections. We had stories that may have been questioned because of like, well did you take all sides into consideration right. I mean, subjectivity was one of the big things right especially if you're writing about incarceration and you're incarcerated then you can be opinionated or editorializing can become a danger. So you know we've always had that issue where we have to tread lightly on, you know, ourselves just being mindful of like okay, are we being as objective as we can and are we getting the facts right or are we getting it twisted and fact checking a story of like, it's easy to fact check because you know, you know what happened you know who was president stuff like that, but then there's also like the prison rumor mill and wanting to write a story about that, and maybe juicy and attractive but it may not be true, or all the way through. Yeah. I know that everybody's going to be interested in the question of censorship but before that I do, I did want to chime in with a comparison in terms of the way that PJP works. Which is that you know as, as I mentioned we are, we work completely via correspondence sometimes through the private electronic messaging system that is not connected to the internet but connected to people's prison IDs, and then occasionally via phone and so for us right now. The first step is that you know we people submit stories. We have a writing prompts and extensive writing prompts that gives them a start and they submit stories. We get them transcribed if they needed. We have volunteers do a first line of editing. We do a staff edit. We do what we call a top edit by a senior editor. We do copy editing and then we, and then I take a look at everything that goes out before we put it on the website and and you know our biggest challenge has been that that dealing with stories from all across the country, you know, every, every prison, every state has different rules. You know Bill Keller who's our, the chair of our board of advisors and the founding editor of the Marshall project recently came out with a book called what's prison for and in it he says that if you've been to one prison, you know about one prison. And so, you know, how do you work with writers from 36 states and make sure that we're not breaking any rules or endangering people and, and that's always a challenge. You know, and, and with the issue of censorship for example we, you know, we've, we've done a lot of research and one of the things you know our understanding is that yeah that people who are incarcerated have first amendment rights, they can write what they want, but depending on the state the consequences can, there are consequences because people inside are not free of body and so there's a lot of between that, that right and the fact that they're incarcerated there's a lot of, you know, potential reprisal that right. And so, Sam Quentin I think is, is, I think it would be safe to say that it's the most progressive prison in the country for for all its issues, and especially in terms of the media center. And I'm wondering if you talk a little bit about, you know, how that approval process and whether you've ever seen or witnessed or experienced, you know, Sacramento stepping in. Yeah, for sure. So I think, you know, censorship is one of those things where it can either be state, you know, like administered right, or it's just self regulation, I think most publications have their editorial guidelines that they go by. And they have like certain lines that they will not cross right and it's like I won't publish this we won't do this. And that's their editorial choice right so I think you know everybody has their own self self censorship, you know, like that's how I look at it. And I think for San Quentin news we've always had like a mission and a vision of what we want to cover and why. So for instance we choose not to cover prison riots, because prison riots are just like not in our vein of what we want to cover right. Everybody covers that if you want to see a press release about a prison riot, you can get it from the official documentation or there's always somebody who's going to publish it in some other publication. Our mission is more about like the rehabilitative efforts of the incarcerated, the programs that are happening and the things that highlight opportunity, and also like public safety. So like in that regard, you know, we tread lightly on hearing like, you know, for instance we get a lot of letters to the editor. There are a lot of complaints and grievances that it's like, well, there's a way that you can go about that to remedy that without like throwing stones, you know, in a publication. And we're not going to weaponize the San Quentin news just so that somebody can get their voice out right. When it comes to Sacramento, particularly the Office of Public and Employee Communications, they've been very gracious and lenient with like what we will consider like, you know, a state parameters right. It's like the, they gave us like a clear slate on what we can do. And all they asked was like hey we just want you guys to be fair and giving us a chance to respond to something. You know, without you guys just like publishing something without asking our opinion or our official statement or stance on something. So we were free to do that we did get into some hot water one time I think you were still there when one of our writers wrote a story about high desert state prison. And it was like talking about a racist culture that had existed there. And it was about an inspector general report that had been written back in 1997. And talking about in 2018 when this story was written, somebody had referred to that report in a news story. And they were just saying that the culture had been a racist culture in high desert state prison. Somehow, the writer mistook it as like oh it's a new report it just came out. And we got in hot water because of that because nobody checked the dates. And I bothered to check the date so there was, you know, not backlash but there was like a conversation that we had to have about like you can't just publish something. So the word from high desert actually came to talk to us about that, and say like dude you could at least reached out, like nobody sent me an email nobody had anybody call me. So we can talk to the PIO either at San Quen, or at high desert and Lieutenant Sam Robinson who approves all the media content and overseas it just to make sure that we don't step on all liability issues, because all media outlets for the most part have to have media insurance. So because we're an incarcerated run media program and a project under, you know, like the state of California. We have to tread carefully on like not getting sued because if we get sued, then it's a state who actually has to respond. So like I understand like the liability issue. So, yeah, that's how we try to like navigate, you know, that issue. Right. And, and I see a question about where you can find a back issue of San Quentin is, San Quentin has a website. It's, I think it's actually a really a little interesting little story about how you have a website. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's great that we have like a digital website and that's because of the last mile. So, you know, San Quentin being probably the most progressive prison in, you know, the United States has given a lot of freedom to what kind of programs are accessible to the incarcerated and what kind of programs are able to operate. So the last mile was started by Beverly parentini and Chris Redlitz, and basically they teach the guys how to code. And it started at San Quentin and it has since spread to a bunch of other states. And our website is actually, you know, managed by the incarcerated inside of San Quentin as well. So they upload all our stories, you know, keep them on there and then update them every month. And they can they are archived there and they also have a man, the journalism school at Berkeley. And, and just so everybody knows, it is extremely rare for a person for a person newspaper to have a website. I only know of one other that has somebody on the outside, literally posting PDFs of their issues. That's Neil Creek Post and California and I own California that does that. Most websites don't. And one of the things that we try to do at PJP is to make sure that we're amplifying those newspapers as well. And so we do have a section called from prison newspapers where we will republish stories and and pay for them. And so they're online somewhere. We're also about to launch what we're calling the prison newspaper project we have gone and done a survey of all existing prison newspapers and, you know, please sign up for our news, our newsletters to keep up on, you know, on when we'll be announcing that and and San Quentin news has an awesome newsletter as well and so that'll give you a great way to just, you know, see what some of the best articles are. Yeah, cool. Thank you. So I see there's a question about that archives go back to 2008. So the paper was reinstated in 2008 after being dormant for 20 years. But there are back issues dating back to the 60s 70s and early 80s. And then we have some issues from the 1940s. It's 83 year old newspaper now. So that's incredible. Huge legacy. I also see a question. Can you discuss how participating in journalism has changed the lives of people inside. Do you want to talk a little bit about that. Jesse. Yeah, for sure. So, I think for me one of the main things right especially having grown up in the journalism guild, being taught by, you know, some award winning journalists. It was excellent just having that experience and I think, apart from teaching me the critical thinking skills and growing up with the guys in my cohort. There was also the sense of purpose, you know, one of the things that happens when we become disenfranchised from our societies and separated from our families is that, you know, this sense of hopelessness and purposelessness you know seeps in, especially when you don't have a release date. So for a lot of the fellas in the newsroom, like the newspaper gave us purpose and a sense of belonging. Like all of a sudden we had a mission and a vision and something to actually strive for, even though we didn't have release dates at the time. We actually had something you know to look forward to every day because we got to speak on behalf of 136,000 incarcerated men and in the state of California. And that was like, you know, great for just personal like value, you know, just having that value as an individual and being able to advocate for ourselves and for our community. And especially like for me, one of the biggest things was just recognizing my autonomy like I have a choice. And number two, being able to take accountability, like being able to balance that. And then the other thing I would say that it benefited me a lot in terms of like my vocabulary. I still remember my first vocabulary word when we were writing that project about burning down a house you know and it's like there's a different burn of being charred charred is like, you know, like more descriptive right. So after that I fell in love with just like buying the source. So I bought one. As soon as I got home. As a matter of fact, I got it right next to me look. Nice. Nice. Yeah, such a proud teacher moment. So I, I wanted to answer that question to and and, you know, rather than hearing it from me we've, I just wanted to read something that a writer had sent us recently. And this is a writer named to car who is incarcerated at the in Corcoran and and he said the following PJP is continuing to give me an opportunity to be a part of something I never have dreamt of a feeling of belonging to a writing community that encouraged and motivated me to become a better writer and journalist. My writing skills have matured. I picked up a lot of new vocabulary and writing techniques through the correspondence program PJP provided. And that my life at what's dark and hopeless because I'm a lifer and Nate. Now I see a beacon of hope and and so you know that's it. It's a lot of what what what Jesse is is saying as well. We also, one of the things that PJP does is that we work with writers inside to get stories co published with mainstream publications. We also work on collaborations and we also help trying, you know, continue to do the work that I did with Jesse and getting his story published in the post and we've actually got one coming out tomorrow in the New York Times and by a writer in in Idaho named Patrick Irving and I asked him what he learned and one of the things that he said is that, you know, he's that that he's learned that he needs to add an extra level of scrutiny to the work that he submits. Because I was working in a bit of a rush I miss necessary qualifiers and allowed old information to settle in my place. As Mason, who is one of our editor editors said in the revision process things are always changing and this is why we fact check that will be my model and the motto moving forward and it's just amazing to hear writers embrace the identity of a journalist. And, you know, I've certainly felt that once we plant that idea that the nature of the stories start changing overnight where before they might have seen their store their experiences just as their own experiences, they start to put context to their experiences as something that's more representative of a larger group of people. And, and it's, it's, it's so, you know, I sometimes people talk about what I do is if I'm, you know, I'm, I'm doing something out of the good of my heart and I just I feel so privileged I felt privileged working with you Jesse but I feel so privileged every day that that I get to, I get to work with these stories and these writers. And I know that at San Quentin. One of your challenges, you have the happy problem that so many of the you so many of the staff members are getting their sentences commuted and part you know pardoned and being recognized for the contributions that they've been they've been making. Right. Yeah, yeah it's definitely great to have staff turnover in the newsroom that for the longest time had been like consistent right. We had the same writers same staff same management for about nine years and then most of us paroled, and that's a good, that's a good place to be at, you know, just getting people. Not just the recognition right but I think the validation you know that their work actually matters that their stories and their voices are finally being heard, and that what they do for their community is also recognized by people who actually hold the keys to their release. It's, it's amazing I think journalism for, for a lot of us you know especially I still go into the prison three times a week so I still hear from the guys like how journalism, especially them being able to write and share stories of other men that are in prison. It's not just empowering right but it's like, you know, it gives them a sense of like man I'm doing something in spite of the senses that I have, you know like I'm making a difference and I'm making an impact. And you know it shows. You know for sure and, you know, I think the guys at San Quentin news and and the alumni as I like to think about them are the North Star of, you know, the possibilities, just as, as the data point, you know, recidivism rates in this country, depending on who you, who you ask or who's who's taking a survey it's anywhere from 60 to 80% right. At San Quentin news, the recidivism rate among the alumni is zero. So, you know if you're asking about how journalism has changed the lives I mean it's, you know it's you know we talk about journalism as a dying industry and it's shrinking and you know the jobs are few and the pores pay but the tools that it teaches you are are all things that that are valued and professional development and so it does. I mean what can you talk a little bit about what, what the alums are doing what they go on to do. Oh, for sure. For sure. So I think there's like, I always refer to the fact that like our zero percent recidivism rate right would not be impressive if we were all just like barely getting by. Like it's not that it's they wouldn't have been that much of a big difference right but most of the guys that have come out of the media center, and you know, San Quentin news, being one project of like everything that's going on there. Like everybody's either managing a nonprofit doing like gun violence prevention and youth prevention programs, youth diversion programs. Eddie's you know, like doing bookkeeping and photography on the side. We have guys producing like film and commercials and stuff for nonprofits in the Bay Area, so that they can you know have content to showcase. So most of our guys are actually like thriving in the community, like they're making a difference and it's not just like they're making good money. It's like they're giving back, like they came back and they're using this skill set to make a difference. I think it was you who told us that like that there's two components that are like most important in the story and the reason why we use quotes is because people love people. And you know we've taken that concept right and just like continue to enforce it right and push it forward as like yeah we put people at the center of the stories because people are more important than statistics numbers and corrections numbers. Right. I'm more than my prison number and everybody that we highlight in these stories right like it's about that so when we come out into the community. It's about making a difference and using those skill sets that you know we've learned in there. It's transferable skills you know and just like finding a way to like leverage that to give back to our communities, you know some of the guys call it living amends where you can't get back to you know your survivors families and stuff like that right. Or the victims families but you can at least give back to the community make a difference and hopefully change the trajectory of somebody's life by doing community based storytelling. Yeah, I just wanted to, I mean the big event recent or you know, well relatively recent event of course is in COVID and PJP. The prison journalism project actually got it start during COVID. You know really because of all our friends in San Quentin, San Quentin was the site of one of the worst probably the worst outbreak in a prison in the country. The, the prison was under lockdown we weren't hearing anything and we, you know, me and my partner Shaheen Pasha who, who is over on the East Coast, you know we just, we felt like, you know we were in a historic moment. We felt like we were about to make the same mistake. We've made over and over again which is that we are not including a voice of a community in this historic historical record and there was just news that we wanted to hear from inside and so we started the prison journalism project. We, we put up a publication on media and put out a call through prison legal news which is a widely read publication and we just started getting flooded. And, you know, two months later George Floyd was murdered and by the summer we just realized that how much journalism can be done inside, even in prisons without any structure, even when it's just one person. In solitary confinement or on death row or any, you know, that there is still journalism that can be done that can, that can, you know, provide shed light in a way that can, you know, shift public opinion, provide some context for criminal justice reform and, and so I just, you know, maybe you could talk a little bit about what it was like to be in that prison with, you know, not you but you know for for the staff to be in the prison with the worst outbreak, trying to put out a paper. Yeah, so initially, we had a hard time just communicating because that like you said there was no phones there was no communication other than through snail mail. And like the first you know, thing was just like, you know, there was a lot of fear. There was just like a lot of panic going on and stuff because you know it was just about survival. Like there was constantly, you know, man down when somebody was going out and like having to go to the hospital and stuff. There was just like this hysteria that was taking place and most folks inside like they're just trying to survive they're not really tripping on like oh we got to get the publication out, even though like the editorial board knew like hey we got to get the paper out eventually for us on the outside it wasn't like a matter of like not being able to get it out it was just like okay well we don't have all the layout materials we have all our designs inside. We didn't anticipate it you know, a pandemic, you know, or a term lockdown right like those things don't happen at San Quentin the flagship of rehabilitation. So it was like, we were all caught off guard until Ali Tambora, and he was a grant officer a program officer at the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, and they decided to come to the rescue and said hey like we'll help fund and outside of the patient so that you guys can continue to put the paper out. So that actually gave us some bandwidth and freed up you know some resources for us on the outside to be able to do that. And it was just like, still a challenge because you know, we're trying to put out a 20 page newspaper, but we only have, you know, eight pages of content coming out because of snail mail, we can't wait because we're on deadline. It was like hard the first you know six months, but we had a good team of folks you know who came together and some resources and we were able to like start ramping up a little bit, and then we went back down and it just kept going over and over right for the next year and a half. I mean it was extraordinary to see from the sidelines because you know the part that just is not not being modest on behalf of the entire crew is that Ali Tambora is former former. One of the key staff members who helped reboot San Quentin years, and then you had all these alumni that were out here that stepped in to do the work that they were doing inside. And then I think that was when Jonathan Shoe was doing layout when Boat ready was managing editor was doing was it was doing us a lot of the writing some stories too right I mean who else am I who else am I forgetting and the advisors, of course, yeah have your Eddie, myself, Miguel Casada, like we were all functioning in different roles like the same roles we manage on the inside that times, whether it was layout managing editor like I had a function as managing editors sometimes. Johnson, she was doing layout and Javier and Kenny writing, they were all putting source material just like the Berkeley students, because even UC Berkeley wasn't going to school. Like during those online so we didn't have our volunteer base, our advisors, you know, they were doing the best that they could but operating like for Google Docs open at the same time is kind of tricky. Tech is just one of those things that like it was great, you know to like go through that experience just because like we knew coming out of it that we were a lot stronger just because we had outside infrastructure and we had developed some systems, but building those capacities out here. After like we had spent so many years inside of prison was another learning curve for us as well. So, you know, I wasn't grateful for the pandemic but I'm grateful for the learning that came out of it. Yeah, I mean we, you know, we were in a little bit of a different situation because you know we started in the pandemic. And, but, you know, just trying to figure out how you do journalism via letters and, and, and all that jazz was was quite the experience we you know our whole prison journalism projects whole volunteer program came out of the pandemic because we actually found that students who weren't working. You know professionals that were working from home had the time to give a little bit and so you know that's that's been amazing for us. Correct. Did you want to switch over to questions or should we just keep on talking. If you both want to keep on talking. I think people are like an end so I think I mean my you know it's like I got a couple were like, I do have some things that maybe I could ask but I'm not seeing a lot of chat right now. I'm not from the q&a though. I did prison authorities respond to increase scrutiny during the pandemic did they make it more difficult for the press or incarcerated writers to eliminate the conditions and what was going on. So I think on on that note right like that's probably like the biggest silver lining in terms of like the pandemic. Like all of a sudden, there was too many eyes looking at what was happening inside of the institutions, and there was no way for it to be ignored. So now like whether they like that or not they had to address you know the elephant in the room, and for the longest time like there hasn't been that much press interest and coverage of the prison system as during the pandemic. Like for the most part you know when you go to prison and I'll speak you know and the first person not as executive director but as Jesse Vasquez right. So, going to prison right was one of the, you know, probably the worst experience right and the best in my life. But it was also like where you learned like who actually cares right for the most part prisoners are relegated as the low hanging fruit during political elections. Where the ones that can be discarded easily where the scapegoats you know that everybody uses when they need a cheap vote, and they want to get you know reelected. And we're also like the ones that are easily forgotten. You know when it comes to like the big movements and the big pushes, every policy that has ever been passed about prisons and prisoners, never takes into consideration the people that it actually impacts. So when COVID hit, all of a sudden, everybody cares right because people are dying, and death attracts people, and death attracted news to San Quentin in a way that it had never had before. And all of a sudden prisons everywhere had to pay attention. So like, oh we can't just like sweep 20 bodies under the rug. And it took the death of a lot of human beings, you know, to like draw this national press coverage to the prison system. So all of a sudden like the press secretaries and press offices had to open up the doors to everybody. So that's the silver lining of COVID in the California Department of Corrections, and probably the Department of Corrections across the nation, where they couldn't just say, oh no comment, penological interest, we can't say anything. You got to say something because this is a public health crisis, and you have to address it. I have to tell you, Jeff, there are too many prisons that still will not comment. So, I mean, it's just, you know, the more we learn and the more we experience what, you know, what systems and are like in different states, you know, Florida, New Jersey, places like that. You know, it's, it's kind of incredible that that, you know, San Quentin news. I mean, you guys have an incredible team that you, you know, it's, it's, and it's weird to say that right I mean I it's weird for me to hear that here you say you know prison was the worst and best experience of your life. But at the same time, I think, you know, one of the stories that we've published that I think about a lot is we have a, we have a writer at San Quentin who was on death row. And he first got our attention because he wrote a story about what it was like to live side by side with death and how he took inspiration for the Japanese samurai. And, and then about, I don't know, 10 months later he sent another story, and he said that, you know, he, he's been, he's been chosen as part of a pilot program that allows death row prisoners to go into the main population. And he knows that it's good for him and that he knows that he has to do it, but how the thought of leaving death row makes him homesick. Because he has been in death row until since he was 20 years old, he's now in his late 40s, it's the only adult life he's known, and he's built a community for himself, and it just like it still blows me away. You know, and, and I think there's so many nuances and intricacies and stories and that, that, you know, I mean, I'm sure that everybody here in the room knows that there's no way that that the stare, you know, they that that people's individuals experiences can be stereotyped or that a community with nearly 2 million people inside across the country can be stereotyped. You know, it's where I think, you know, both of our organizations together and other great ones I mean we're just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of, of, you know, the stories that need to come out. So I just want to note, I'm seeing someone in the chat say that they worked at San Quentin TV so that's exciting to find out about our program and join us here. So Yael asks, maybe this can work, I guess this can work for San Quentin or for PJP too, how, how new writers find the paper, or how the paper finds them, how they get on board it like what's the process for training people and for people that may not have been journalists beforehand so how do people find San Quentin news or how do people find PJP or how do you find them. Well you're asking the right people. Yeah, for sure so San Quentin news media center is like right in the middle of the yard like you can find it in the corner of the education building. Everybody is welcome to apply for the journalism guild. And in the journalism guild. That's like where we get our farm team from. That's where we pick our writers from. And it all depends on you know there's a couple of things that we look for in our writers or future staff. Anybody can write for the paper we accept any submission from any state prison inside of California, even outside will take some submissions but we haven't gotten too many. But for the most part, everybody can write for the paper as long as you know it meets the editorial guidelines, and then it when it comes to staff that's where it gets you know like tricky because we only have like 18 slots. And you know we want to make sure that like it's a good fit for the team it's a good fit for the advisors that there's potential. You know, we always look for when I was editor in chief and I always tell folks like it was probably the golden era because you know every thing that it's his golden era. So when, when I was editor in chief there we had our process of like okay we want to evaluate character potential and fit. So you can teach people how to write you know if you have the right teachers in a room, but one thing that you want for people that are going to be long term living in a fishbowl and reporting on their community you want to have somebody with upright character. You can have somebody who has you know shady characteristics who can be trusted, who's going to twist people's words or miss quote them, or try and find people that think like minded like him just because he wants to make a story of out of something. So character was the main thing that we looked for potential was like okay, do they have the skill sets that we can actually get crafted and can he be honed and can he be groomed. And is he going to be a good fit was a third because we have a lot of volunteers that come in, both men and women and a lot of Berkeley students every semester. Thanks to UC Berkeley Professor Bill Drummond, who's been generous for the past. I don't know, 10 years. You know, so he's been bringing in students for a long time. So we want to be mindful of like you know people's comfort zones and you know, being able to know that like who's in the newsroom is somebody who can be trusted, not just with people's words but with people's presence. And I remember, I mean you guys talked about that when I was there and it just left such an impression on me. One of the things that we haven't talked about here is about, you know, is is the fact that San Quentin News is one of the most integrated places inside prison where so much is governed, you know, by by race. And, and if you were wondering Jesse's awesome article in the Washington Post was was the personal take on that and how how how San Quentin taught him. He taught you race relations right. One of the one of the names that we haven't mentioned yet is Richard Richardson Bonnarue, who was your predecessor as editor in chief and and and the friendship that you guys had. You know, and then with respect to prison journalism project I mean, we're travels really quickly I mean we started out with prison legal news we have a lot of prison programs. And education programs that that help send word in we have a submissions packet that we send out to writers who want to write for us. And we also have our own newspaper we have a new newspaper and instructional newspaper called PJ P inside. That's primarily for our for incarcerated people it, it, it has our best stories with little blurbs on why we chose them and we have a couple pages called learn and where we will annotate a story will break it down we'll explain how this story got to put together and we'll also share some other, you know instructional information as well and so that has been really great in terms of, you know it's it's it's been very well received it's it's fun, you know it's interesting to read it's helpful it's instructional and we get requests all the time for them. And so, you know and Greg maybe we'll send you some issues or get you on our list as well so you can maybe have them along with all these other awesome inside publications. Yeah, yeah. I, and I just you know we, while we talk about this and how it takes so many organizations to move the needle I mean I think I think we would both love to give shout outs to some of our friends who are working in this space to I mean, Empowerment Avenue, which is run by for some Thomas who some of you might know from your hustle. He used to be on San Quentin, a San Quentin News staffer as well right that week. Yeah, yeah he's our sports writer, yeah, I'm in. I'm incredibly impressed and proud of Rosson Thomas and Emily no co his, you know, who's started that. Yeah, and, you know, had America has always had a great criminal justice program but but our friends I think our mutual friends they're doing great work. I think, you know, it's, you know, the US, the US prison system is, is the most broken system. In the world, you know, you know, we like to talk about about the statistic that America, the US has about 20% of the world's population and about. Sorry, am I doing am I going that it's about 4% of the world's population and 16% of the world incarcerated population, which is just insane where we're right down there with Rwanda I think. Yeah, yeah, definitely daunting number. This is Gregory wondering for like families, the people on the outside, what does the paper mean for them. Like, do they get sent the paper and get to write you guys and. Yeah, they do, they do so a lot of the families that get subscriptions, either through our website or you know the print version. We get a lot of fan mail, maybe about, you know, 100 pieces of mail every month, you know, from families and incarcerated about, you know, 60 of them are from the incarcerated and then the restaurant families. I look at all the social media posts from the families and things like that. The biggest takeaway during COVID unfortunately was, you know, the fact that we lost 29 individuals at San Quentin 28 incarcerated men, one correctional sergeant, and two of the family members of the men that passed away, they were happy to have had pictures of their loved ones either in a runner's club or in their graduation from Mount Tama Pius College, which is the only college accredited inside of a prison system. And it was like very heartbreaking to know that like, these individuals have been incarcerated for one was 23 years and the other one was about 31. And like they had passed from COVID inside of the prison system and the fondest best memories that their families would have were recorded inside of San Quentin news. Like they would not be remembered for the worst mistake that they made in their life. They would not be remembered for their graduation and then completing the marathon with the 1000 mile club at San Quentin. And I think that speaks volumes to the fact that like sometimes the stories that go unnoticed and then told in mainstream media, those have significance for the family members of the people that don't often get a chance to tell their side of the story, you know, in the, in the US prison system like the incarcerated don't actually have a voice inside of the courtroom, because their families don't have to speak on their behalf. They don't get to tell their version of the tail, you know, because it's incriminating. They don't get to share anything at sentencing. The only time they get to tell their story is either before parole board, or the day of their execution when they get to apologize. And that is one of the things that's like very disheartening because the only time you actually get to tell your story is either on your website like San Quentin News, or through a project like prison journalism project where you actually get recognized as a human being and get to tell your story. I mean, one of the things that we are formerly incarcerated friends had pointed out about our site was that we provide a profile page for any writer who has submitted who we published at least one story. And the first thing, you know, and he was really blown away by that. And the first thing he said was, you know, you know, when people search for their names and in Google, you know, for the first time, they can, the Google search can be populated by the stuff that they've done, not what they've, you know, the worst mistakes of their lives. And, you know, that's, you know, it's, yeah, I mean, it's great that we can do that. I see the other question here about articles resulting in fair prison roles. Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things that we've been doing in the past year is collecting a lot of data points, you know, to like show our, you know, like metrics of success and impact. And we've been able to at least notice that there's been a couple of changes, not for like fair prison rules, like administrative rules, but just in terms of influencing policy within the state of California and in particular, within the practices of particular district attorney's offices. So because of the San Quint news, we've been having like public forums with district attorneys, public defenders, law enforcement agencies and things like that. And we've, you know, helped them like recognize that they've had to change certain policies and practices just in terms of like how they treat people. And of course, at the time of arrest before sentencing, you know, or during the trial phase of the process, and then within the California Department of Corrections. I think we've actually influenced how they actually treat incarcerated run media projects, because they hadn't had a manual to like deal with like incarcerated run or incarcerated produce content until the San Quint media center. So all of a sudden they had to like take notice of something. I, if I could just squeeze in a quick short one as well. This is not in California, but one of our, you know, a direct example of the impact that a story could make is that we had our we have a correspondent in New Jersey at New Jersey State prison. And when he started working for us, all of his mail was stopped in both directions. It didn't matter if we sent them registered. He was, you know, if the records would show that it was received at the prison he never got them and that was that went on for about a year and a half. And then he published a story in the New Jersey start leisure about the Omicron outbreak earlier this year, and, and the state legislators took notice and all of a sudden they went in they wanted to look into what was going on at New Jersey State prison his mail resumed miraculously. And, and the next thing you know he was asked to teach a class using our materials and so you know it you know it can have broad impact like, you know, the examples that Jesse, Jesse shared and it can, you know, it can have direct impact too. I'm muted of course I am. Very easy sin of zoom. I want to thank you, Carrie, and Jesse for an amazing program this was, this was a real treat to have you both here today. And I think people learned a lot. I know I certainly did. And, I mean if you have any last thoughts, please feel free to say them or you can see in the chat that people are, you know, saying a lot of great things and thank you. Well, I mean the one last thing that we would love to do is that today actually kicks off both of our organizations two months, you know, end of year fundraising campaign. It's, it's we're both part of a nonprofit independent news organization that that that does this coordinated campaign and so if you do have anything to spare and could support our work. It would be so grateful if you don't, we would be so grateful for, you know, signing up for our newsletters and sharing the stories with with our writers and, and I just wanted to give one shout out to one organization that that that I missed, and is that that I think is a great work which is humans of San Quentin and that was started by one hands who is about to come out right you'll see. Yeah, yeah, hopefully, you know, another star star soon to be San Quentin is along. Yeah, yeah. And let's not forget the Marshall project with Marshall project, of course, of course, Lawrence is one of our board members, or, and as is bill Keller and, and they, you know, they've they've always been leading the way. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much for coming today and speaking to us. Again, it's a real treat. Yeah. Thank you for coming. We are gonna for those of you that want to have the video later it'll we'll send that out in the next couple days. And yeah, please. Yeah, there's other programs coming up you know if you want to join for that your hustle program on Thursday. There's, you know, there's a lot of ways you can show up in person. I can't wait for that book. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you for all you do as a volunteer as well for us. And Jesse I'll catch you soon. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Have a good evening.