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Vance Center Executive Director Alex Papachristou joins Prison Journalism Project Board

March 2023

Prison Journalism Project (PJP), a national initiative that trains incarcerated writers to be journalists and publishes their stories, this month announced that it had appointed Vance Center Executive Director Alex Papachristou to its board of advisors, along with two new appointees to the organization’s board of directors, Steve Seleznow and Aly Tamboura.

“We are honored to welcome Steve, Aly and Alex to our Board in this exciting time of growth and development for PJP. Their individual accomplishments will serve as an incredible resource, and we are looking forward to elevating the reporting of incarcerated journalists together,” said Yukari Kane, co-founder of PJP, in a statement. 

“There are decades of professional insights between our three new members, including a tremendous amount of work dedicated to communities. This new cohort is an invaluable addition to the existing talent on our Board,” said Shaheen Pasha, co-founder of PJP. 

Papachristou’s appointment makes him the newest member of PJP’s board of advisors, following poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts who joined the advisory board earlier this year. Other advisory board members include board chair Bill Keller, Founding Editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, and Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University.

Papachristou is also a member of the board of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Prison Journalism Project is a national, independent, nonpartisan initiative that trains incarcerated writers in the tools of journalism and helps them reach an outside audience via their own publication as well as through partnerships with mainstream media organizations. 

The Vance Center has previously worked with PJP through its Lawyers for Reporters initiative. In 2022, a team of attorneys from law firm Davis Polk helped incorporate PJP and secure it 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Davis Polk recognized this work in November 2022 at the firm’s annual Pro Bono Awards.