THE “WOODWARD AND BERNSTEIN” OF PRISON JOURNALISM
That’s what we were called, Wilbert Rideau and I—the “Woodward and Bernstein” of prison journalism. I don’t really know when the analogy was made, or by whom. But for a brief three year period, 1979 through 1981, Rideau and I became media sensations as we captured some of the nation’s most prestigious journalism awards: the Robert F. Kennedy Special Journalism Award, the George Polk Award, the Sidney Hillman Award, and two ABA Silver Gavel Awards. We transformed The Angolite, the official inmate publication of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, from a “prison rag” into an influential voice in the American criminal justice system. It was no minor achievement.
But, as so often is the case, professional success leads to personal failure. The “salt and pepper” writing team fell apart. There is always enough blame to spread around for failed relationships, professional and personal. The failed Rideau/Sinclair relationship is no different. We both bear responsibility for its failure. Rideau has used his recent memoir, In the Place of Justice (Random House 2010), to put forth his reasons for the failure. He pointed the blame finger at me while simultaneously hogging the lion’s share of credit for the success of The Angolite. And that’s has always been a professional rub for me: Rideau’s insatiable desire to “hog the credit” in every life situation. Sharing success is not one of his strong suits.
That’s why I have a few tidbits I would like to add to the public debate on this fading issue which, I admit, has become totally irrelevant. But I did pay for this website and it is my forum of expression when it comes to Wilbert Rideau. No one is forced to read it, much less care about what it says. But, anyway, I was recently doing some research (unrelated to this website) and came across Rideau’s Wikipedia page. Any responsible researcher knows that information contained on Wikipedia pages must be considered with serious skepticism. And that’s certainly true about the Rideau page. It contains the following inaccurate and false information:
“Rideau became known for his exposes of prison life and won some of journalism’s most prized awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the George Polk Award, and the Sidney Hillman Award. He was the first prisoner ever to win the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. The Angolite was the first prison publication ever to be nominated for a National Magazine Award, for which it was nominated seven times. Rideau was credited with helping bring peace and reform to what had been called “the bloodiest prison in America’ in the 1970s.”
First, Rideau did not win either the Kennedy or Hillman awards. These awards were bestowed upon The Angolite—the Kennedy in 1979 and Hillman in 1981. The Kennedy award was based upon three editions of the prison magazine, two of which I contributed the lead articles. The Hillman award was based on one feature story, Louisiana Death Watch, which appeared in the prison magazine in 1980. I wrote every single word of that article. But Rideau, and his supporters, have consistently attributed these two prestigious journalism awards solely the former convict editor.
Does that stick in my craw? You bet’cha! Who would want some else to get credit for their work? Rightfully, these two awards belong to The Angolite—not to either me or Rideau. They were given to the magazine. We were individual recipients of the 1979 Polk award and the 1979/80 ABA Silver Gavel Awards. But Rideau has always assumed that since he was the lead editor of the magazine, he was entitled to claim personal credit for all the awards bestowed upon it. I don’t think so—and because I don’t think so and have taken him to task for doing so, many of his supporters have accused me of being envious and jealous of his success which, in part, has been based upon him stealing credit for my work as evidenced by his consistent habit of taking sole credit for the Kennedy/Hillman awards. Just like in the Rideau Wikipedia page.
Second, the Rideau Wikipedia page says Rideau was the “first prisoner ever” to win the ABA Silver Gavel Award. That’s correct, as far as it goes. Rideau captured the award in 1979 and I won the award in 1980. But the implication is that Rideau did something extraordinary or special by being the “first prisoner ever” to win the award. I guess the “second prisoner ever” to win the award is somehow diminished by comparison.
Third, the Rideau Wikipedia page says Rideau has been “credited” with helping to “bring peace and reform to what had been called ‘the bloodiest prison in America’ in the 1970s.” This past June David Oshinksy, a professor of history at the University of Texas and New York University, took this false bait and repeated it in a New York Times review of Rideau’s memoir. It’s hard to say where the misinformation about Rideau being “credited” with helping bring “peace and reform” to “the bloodiest prison in America” got started but no credible person in the Louisiana criminal justice system, much less the state’s prison system, has ever “credited” Rideau with bringing “peace and reform” to the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The convict editor had absolutely nothing to do with bringing “peace and reform” to the prison in 1977 when Warden Ross Maggio transformed it from the “bloodiest prison in the nation” into one of the safest.
Wilbert Rideau has historically—as he repeatedly did in his memoir—taken credit for changes at Angola for which he had absolutely no involvement. That’s why I’ve called him a “spin doctor.” The truth is that Rideau, and The Angolite, stood in the way of “reform” at the prison because he had a vested interest in maintaining the corrupt status quo that allowed him to enjoy so many special privileges. Rideau had as much to do with “peace and reform” at Angola as Pol Pot had to do with human rights in Cambodia.
