by Jeremy Busby, Managing Editor:
Reporting the news from prison is a perilous occupation. Similar to journalists covering war zones, incarcerated journalists are forced to live under unlimited threats. They receive little to no support from media institutions.
Correcting this discrepancy is one of the core components of the vision of JoinJeremy, an upstart nonprofit dedicated to empowering incarcerated journalists.
To support that work we are excited to introduce our digital newsroom, The Collective.
The Collective strives to articulate all the reasons incarcerated journalism matters and provide meaningful ways to support, protect, and defend their rights to report the news.
Our Mission
The current mediascape includes unprecedented attacks on journalist and journalism. Newspapers are closing down, and reporters are being subjected to relentless levels of unjust intimidation and harassment, including: frivolous lawsuits, surveillance, death threats, unlawful arrests, and in some tragic situations, premeditated death.
These disturbing trends sometimes make news when they impact members of the press in free society. But throughout our nation’s jails, immigration detention centers, and prisons, incarcerated journalists routinely endure the same treatment and far worse, and no one bats an eye. Press freedom is on the decline for journalists on the outside these days, but incarcerated journalists never had it in the first place.
Over the past 25 years, I have covered the experiences of incarcerated individuals, dismal prison conditions, and abuses by prison officials. My work has been published by some of the country’s biggest media outlets including the Houston Chronicle, the Marshall Project, and the Chicago Tribune.
Oftentimes, I am the only journalist at my prison facility or throughout the entire state of Texas prison system–which has the highest incarceration population in the nation–to report these stories in hopes of helping the public understand what’s happening behind the walls of incarceration. This important work has had a positive impact on my community, the incarcerated population, their loved ones, and outside citizens.
I have discovered that unearthing hard truths comes with real consequences. I have been written bogus disciplinary infractions, placed into indefinite solitary confinement, assaulted with chemical agents, and live with a constant threat against my life. Like other incarcerated journalists, I’ve received little to no help from legacy media institutions or free speech and journalist organizations.
JoinJeremy’s motto is “none of us is better than all of us.” It’s the aim of The Collective to educate the public on the tools and supportive resources needed by those of us who courageously report news from within the world’s largest carceral state.
Our Goal
In this space, our team intends to publish engaging and informative stories written by both incarcerated and free world journalists, first amendment advocates, legal experts, activists and organizers. We collaborate with other organizations to highlight the very important work that they are doing and identify the solutions they have discovered that helps empower that work. All of our contributors are deeply committed to ethical and unfettered journalism and uncompromising protections for incarcerated journalists.
As the old adage goes, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” Any attack against a journalist, incarcerated or not, is an attack against us all.
Subscribe to The Collective on Substack.
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