There were around 24,000 broadsheets in the US at the beginning of the 20th Century. However, nearly 2,900 dailies closed or merged between 2005 and 2023. Around 6,000 newspapers that still survive are mostly weekly papers! The habit of reading broadsheets has also decreased, with most of the dailies transforming into digital ones. Local dailies, mainly published in suburban, or county news have long had a substantial readership. Unfortunately, many local newspapers disappeared in different countries, including the US, after the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In such a scenario, Prison Mirror, a newspaper made by and for the people held at the Stillwater State Prison of Minnesota, crossed 137 years! The first issue of this daily was published way back in 1887. It is the oldest newspaper published by a correctional institution in the US.

Prison Mirror is written and run entirely by Stillwater inmates who share their own experiences and issues with the readers. They even pen analytical articles on various laws and book reviews! The daily also covers regional, national and international news at large. In fact, there is a competition for which articles would be published and who would work for the daily.

Paul Gordon, one of the Editors of Prison Mirror, arrived in Stillwater after being sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He stressed: “I believe my job is only to lay out the positions, and then let people come to their own conclusion. I hope to write something that matters and through writing, I hope to leave a much different footprint than the one I have already left on the world.”

For his part, Patrick Bonga, a Senior Editor of the paper, said: “For the first 40 years of my life, any other opinion other than mine did not matter. But now just having to be objective and to put stories together that are not one sided, I am now starting to practice in my own life a lot of fight against bias. And that is a big thing.”

However, prison journalism is not an easy task at all as there is no internet connection (especially for inmates) in prisons. Hence, their main source of information is other broadsheets. If the inmates want to know something from the internet, then they have to get print outs with the help of prison staff. Furthermore, articles penned by inmates are often censored! “Overall, we do see a growth and a lot of interest in starting publications, starting podcasts even. And so that is really quite exciting,” stated Yukari Kane, the CEO of the Prison Journalism Project. She added: “There is a lot of information that people who are inside prisons see and are experiencing every day. There is some reporting that can only be done from inside.”

Meanwhile, Kane revealed that there were estimated to be only six prison newspapers three decades ago. And now, there are more than 24!

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das