Navigator: After Covid Tore Through San Quentin, Prison Newspaper Publishes Again

The coronavirus began spreading rapidly at San Quentin State Prison in June. After inmates were transferred from Chino, another California prison, men and guards started getting sick. Some died. The growing crisis became a national story — a particularly egregious example of an epidemic unleashed on the state’s overcrowded prison population, trapped in cells with little ventilation. But the one newspaper that could offer a singular perspective on the issue was unable to report on it: During the lockdown, the San Quentin News, a monthly paper produced by incarcerated people at San Quentin and distributed to all 35 California state prisons, stopped printing.

“We actually had April's newspaper about 80% done on the computer,” said Jonathan Chiu, who worked on the paper, writing crosswords and doing layout, until he was released from San Quentin in May. “Unfortunately, we weren't able to get back to it and print it.”