Texas incarcerated journalist Jeremy Busby says his experience inside the state prison system shows how restricting access to news can reshape political beliefs and weaken demands for humane treatment.

In an April 2026 essay published by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Busby described a period when prison officials removed access to CNN and PBS and limited available television news to Fox News and the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s conservative evangelical programming.

Busby wrote that he watched the change influence people around him. One incarcerated classmate, whom he called Grasshopper, moved from supporting progressive policies to repeating conspiracy theories and partisan television commentary. Busby said similar changes appeared among others in the prison population.

He also connected the programming shift to attitudes about executions and prison conditions. According to Busby, participation in death-row vigils declined, while some incarcerated people began arguing that prisoners did not deserve basic necessities such as soap and toilet paper.

The essay uses that experience to warn about media consolidation outside prison. Busby argues that when a small number of politically connected owners control major news and entertainment outlets, they gain tremendous power to shape which ideas audiences encounter and which perspectives disappear.

Busby has spent nearly three decades in the Texas prison system and earned a college degree while incarcerated. His account is a first-person commentary, not an independent statistical study, but it raises important questions about information access, censorship and the rights of incarcerated journalists.

Access to varied and credible news sources matters inside prisons, where people cannot freely choose from the same range of television, internet and print options available to the public.

Source: Jeremy Busby, Freedom of the Press Foundation, April 22, 2026.