The Nash News

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Philip Vance Smith II has been incarcerated for 22 years, serving a life sentence. He was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting a man in 2001. Nash Correctional is a medium-security prison with two manufacturing plants. In 2005, two men working in the print plant wrote a formal proposal asking for permission to use overstock paper to create a newspaper.

A little over sixty years ago, there were 250 prison newspapers being published on a regular basis. Today, there are 26. We visit Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina to meet Phillip Vance Smith, II, the editor of The Nash News.

Learn more about the American Prison Newspapers digitization project here. Listen to more of Fresh Air’s interview with Angolite editor Wilbert Rideau here. Special thanks to Terry Gross and Fresh Air, which is produced at NPR member station WHYY and distributed by NPR.

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