Nieman Storyboard contributor Christina M. Tapper sits down with Akiba Solomon, an award-winning senior editor at The Marshall Project, the nonprofit news organization dedicated to covering the U.S. criminal justice system. 

Solomon edited The Language Project, about the terms journalists use to write about incarceration. Tapper and Solomon discuss the importance of people-first language, alternatives for dehumanizing words that are a part of our lexicon, and how to work with writers and subjects who are incarcerated. 

Get the full show notes: https://niemanstoryboard.org/2025/05/22/marshall-project-akiba-solomon-how-journalists-write-about-incarceration/

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Reading List: Authors, Books, and Stories Mentioned 

• The Language Project (Edited by Akiba Solomon, The Marshall Project, April 2021)
• Life Inside (Edited by Akiba Solomon)
• FWD.us: People First Language Guide 
• Prison Journalism Project: Language Around Incarceration
• Angela Davis on the term “lockdown,” in conversation with GirlTrek (May 2021, 48:48 mark)
• "The Warmth of Other Suns" (Isabel Wilkerson)
• "When Crack Was King" (Donovan X. Ramsey)

More by Akiba Solomon

• "How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance" (by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin)
• "Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts" (edited by Ayana Byrd and Akiba Solomon)

Show Credits

Hosted and produced by Mark Armstrong
Episode producer and interview by Christina M. Tapper 
Episode editor: Kelly Araja
Audience editor: Adriana Lacy
Promotional support: Ellen Tuttle
Operational support: Paul Plutnicki, Peter Canova

Nieman Foundation curator: Ann Marie Lipinski
Deputy curator: Henry Chu
Music: “Golden Grass,” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Cover design by Adriana Lacy

Nieman Storyboard is presented by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard: https://nieman.harvard.edu/