The San Quentin News was honored by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists at a sold-out banquet in San Francisco.
The March 20 event was the 29th Annual James Madison Awards, and the San Quentin News was recognized for excellence in journalism because of its efforts to inform the public about mass incarceration in California.
Tom Peele, reporter for the Bay Area News Group, which publishes the Oakland Tribune, Marin Independent-Journal and San Jose Mercury News, said that the effort by San Quentin inmates, successfully producing a quality newspaper while operating under the constraints of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, was remarkable.
Former San Quentin News Design Editor Richard Lindsey accepted the award on behalf of the newspaper staff. Lindsey spent 26 years in prison and was paroled in April 2013. While behind bars, he also facilitated the creation of the Victim Offender Education Group. Since his parole, Lindsey works as an electrician in San Francisco.
“It feels awesome for this recognition to be given,” Lindsey said. “To be sitting in a room with some of the highest-ranking journalists of our time. Sitting in the room with them and to be recognized by them as their peers; it feels awesome.”
The guests in attendance said they were particularly impressed with Lindsey’s story and the way he has turned his life around.
The audience numbered around 150 people. Once the award was announced for San Quentin News, a video was shown on a screen in the banquet hall. In the video Editor-in-Chief Arnulfo Garcia, surrounded by the San Quentin News staff, expressed appreciation for the award and thanked the SPJ. Garcia also thanked the volunteers from the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, the Haas School of Business and the civilian advisers, all of whom have helped the newspaper achieve its goals.
A robust round of applause filled the room once the video was shown.
“Simply stated, it feels very empowering,” Lindsey said. “Typically when you’re incarcerated, you lose your voice, and this is a way for the men to retain that voice, to reclaim their voice, really.”
“The award is something that I, along with my other colleagues, really pushed for,” said Will Matthews, the senior communications officer for the American Civil Liberties Union of California. “Especially in this moment in California where we really are on the precipice of revolutionary criminal justice reform.”
To Matthews, the journalistic work done within the walls of San Quentin is a great service to the community at large.
“It’s important that you provide a voice from inside the prison to the free world. They [the inmates] are very important voices that we all in the free world need to hear on a regular basis, and you provide that in tremendous ways every month. We are blessed by the work that they do.”
Ali Winston, a freelance journalist covering criminal justice and member of SPJ, also expressed his admiration for the work done by the San Quentin News staff.
“I think it’s a wonderful project. I think our first amendment right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press is important, and you don’t lose it when you go behind bars,” he said. “I think it’s essential for us to have that right; for people who are incarcerated to have access to information, and also to put out information on their own. “
