In November, Juan Moreno Haines earned a coveted promotion. The California journalist was named editor-in-chief of Solitary Watch, a non-profit news organization reporting on conditions in US prisons.
Haines helps 16 writers craft story ideas, fact-check, edit articles and navigate the many hurdles of reporting on neglect and abuse behind bars, all while dealing with a major obstacle no other media leader in America has to face: he is prohibited from directly communicating with his journalists, most of whom he has never met.
Haines himself has been incarcerated for 27 years and does his job from inside San Quentin prison, the sprawling state prison just north of San Francisco. All of his writers are incarcerated, too. Unless they’re located at his institution, he sends them messages and edits through intermediaries at the non-profit.
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