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Current Affairs

John J. Lennon on doing journalism from prison

Current Affairs

Current Affairs

Comedy, Government, News, Culture, Politics

4.4645 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Pete Davis speaks to prison journalist John J. Lennon (@JohnJLennon1), who writes and acts as contributing editor for Esquire magazine, all while incarcerated in Sing Sing. John J. Lennon's podcast is available here: https://www.podcastone.com/This-Is-A-Collect-Call-from-Sing-Sing Website here: johnjlennon.org This episode was made available earlier to our Patreon subscribers. To gain early access to episodes like these, as well as lots of other brilliant bonus content, please consider becoming one of our subscribers at www.patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! This episode was edited by Dan Thorn of Pink Noise Studios in Somerville, MA.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, Birdfeed. This is Dan Thorne, podcast editor for the Current Affairs podcast, and I just wanted to let

0:06.1

you know that the conversation you're about to hear between Pete Davis and John J. Lennon was recorded in

0:12.4

early February of 2020, before recent developments with either the coronavirus crisis or the 2020

0:19.6

presidential election. So while some of the references

0:23.4

may not be quite as topical, it's still a fascinating conversation, and I hope you enjoy

0:28.8

listening. Thank you. Hello, current affairs listeners. It's your host, Pete Davis here. Every

0:34.8

podcast we do usually starts with. We have a very special episode with a very

0:39.4

special guest, so I bet you don't believe me anymore when I say this. But this time,

0:44.5

I actually meet on this show. We talk a lot about political issues and institutions and policies

0:52.2

and ideas. But a lot of it is just that. It's talk from folks that

0:57.7

live a bit at a distance from the realities about what we're speaking of. But our guest today,

1:04.3

John Jay Lennon, who I have here on the phone, is right there in the center of one of these

1:09.5

institutions we often talk about. He's in prison.

1:13.6

He is specifically in Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Austin, New York, and he's been there

1:19.0

over a decade and has about a decade of more time in there. And I wanted to have him on the show,

1:24.5

not just because he's my friend, but also because he's a tremendously eloquent writer on what it's like to be in prison. He's written for Esquire,

1:33.4

The New York Times, Men's Health, The Washington Post, the Marshall Project. And he's coming

1:38.0

on now specifically because he's promoting his newest podcast. This is a collect call from Sing

1:44.0

Sing. And you can read more about

1:45.6

him at John J.Lennon.org or on Twitter at John J. Lennon 1. And we're so glad to have him on.

1:51.8

John, hello. Hi, Pete. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you here. Why don't we get started right

1:57.0

from the beginning? Tell us a bit about your story. You're probably the nation's most

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