Vaughn Wright — who's currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania — wrote in an op-ed published by the Prison Journalism Project Thursday that Luigi Mangione's temporary stay at State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania,changed the way prisoners there can share their stories with media.
Wright described the scene inside the prison when NewsNation host Ashleigh Banfield arrived to interview Mangione — as a slew of other news outlets "set up shop" outside the building.
"Banfield realized the prisoners on E Block" — where Mangionewas housed— "were watching her show when they shouted and blinked their ceiling lights in response to the conversation she was having from the studio with Alex Caprariello, her reporting colleague in the field," Wright wrote.
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He continued, "So she started posing questions directly to the prisoners, who responded both vocally out of their windows and visually with their cell lights."
The incarcerated writer adds, "I haven’t heard voices here raised in such raucous unison since 2018, when the Philadelphia Eagles won the 2017 Super Bowl."
Although the "prison’s deputy superintendent threatened everyone in the unit," following the interview "with time in the hole if they yelled from their cell or blinked their lights for the media again," Wright emphasized, "Mangione’s notoriety likely softened the amount of oppression the guards here would usually dispense because they wanted something from him. They wanted stories to share with coworkers and friends and family. Everyone wanted a piece of the biggest crime story in the nation."
Prison Journalism Project's full report is availableat this link.