Newspapers all over the country are losing readers, some folding their tents or turning into Web-only operations. But one California publication is doing quite well, managing to increase its circulation while losing no money and retaining not only its entire staff but a wide and loyal readership.

The San Quentin News ("The Pulse of San Quentin"), a monthly tabloid put out on a handful of un-networked prison computers, is one of the few newspapers in the United States written, edited and produced entirely by inmates. Prison officials say it serves as a crucial tool of communication, one that can defuse potential crises and keep San Quentin's prisoners informed about things that matter in their incarcerated lives.

Each month, the News prints the prison-population figure - its inmate circulation - on its front page. For March, it was 5,214.

The paper is the brainchild of former San Quentin Warden Robert Ayers, who retired at the end of 2008 but left a legacy - almost an evangelistic mission - of the idea that information, spread around by inmate peers, would act like a balm, a calming blanket of outreach.

"There really was no mechanism to get information out to the prison population," Ayers said, "and I thought it was important to revive that sense of pride at the institution and among the inmate population. Also, it was another channel to give people some employable skills, and it can be a (vehicle) for defusing potential crises."

Not an 'inmate rag'

Inmates, of course, were not born yesterday, and Ayers felt that "if you just have an inmate rag, and you censor the hell out of it and it doesn't say anything, I might as well write it myself and call it 'The Warden's Bulletin.' " So when he talked to prospective editors, "I told them, 'You need to challenge things, you need to be provocative.' "

But don't be too provocative, he added. Ideally, the paper would hew to a responsible line of toughness tempered with fairness.

So Ayers and his administrative assistant, Lt. Rudy Luna, put out a casting call and came up with a core editorial crew of four bright, articulate men who also happened to be serving sentences for crimes ranging from drug violations to murder.

Their circumstances color their writing - they know prison from intimate experience. But they have also learned since their debut issue in June that in fact-based journalism, there are always two sides to a story.

Witness the tough-minded piece that ran in the January issue about San Quentin's administrative segregation unit, "The Hole," where recalcitrant prisoners are disciplined by being locked up for most of the day in one-man cells. The News described the wing's dirty cells, ripped and shredded mattresses and generally appalling conditions.

Before the story was published, however, the News' senior volunteer adviser, retired Associated Press newsman John Eagan, told editor-in-chief Ken Brydon, serving a life term for murder, and managing editor Michael Harris, doing 28 years for attempted murder and drug crimes, that they had to get the other side.

They did, quoting prison Sgt. D. Kilmer to the effect that officers go through a checklist of a cell's condition, but that "the maintenance repair on lights could be better." The article was approved by Luna and ran in the newspaper, and the next issue carried a follow-up quoting prison officials at length.

Eagan said it was a milestone and told the News' staff, "You now have unquestioned credibility among the inmates. They know you're not a mouthpiece for the warden."

It also introduced these hardened prisoners to "a taste for real-world journalism," Eagan said - "people telling you you're scumbags, and the staff (recognizing) that somebody could be watching them."

Reporting the news around prison, however, is not like ambling over to the City Council and listening to politicians for a few hours.

The paper's reporters are allowed to circulate and interview sources, but that's as far as their newsgathering forays go. The paper has no phones; in a pinch, the reporters can ask the staff head of the print shop to use the phone to try to get ahold of a source.

There is no Internet service, and the News' computers are not networked together. So computer expert Aly Tamboura, serving 14 years for an assault case involving his wife, uses flash drives to move articles from one computer to another.

For the most part, the News writes about announcements or prisoners' success stories, such as one in the January issue about 24 inmates graduating from a program designed to "purge negative thought processes." But there was also a story by inmate David Marsh, a college journalism major, quoting a medical journal study on the high death rates suffered by newly released prisoners.

Brydon said, "There's no lack of information and story lines. Throughout this institution, there's a need to know - about inmate issues, medical issues, housing issues."

Avoiding making enemies

There is an overriding concern - the reporters and editors should not try to tackle the kind of story that could make them some enemies.

"Prison is an angry place," Brydon said. "You learn to carry yourself with a degree of diplomacy."

And how has he fared? How does he feel, staring at the possibility of spending the rest of his life in the most locked-down section of Marin County?

"Things will work themselves out," he said. "I've got a meaningful and productive life here. I'm not a failure.

"Besides, writing untangles the thoughts. It gives me a lot of perspective on my own life."