Hearst Rejects Covid Prison Ad

The publisher of the New Haven Register pulled the plug on an advertisement that highlighted the dangers of being locked up during Covid-19.

The local criminal justice and public health advocates who paid for the ad are asking why.

The ad itself was created by the New Haven Harm Reduction Working Group, a coalition of town and gown advocates for the incarcerated, sex workers, drug users, and the homeless.

The group promotes a ​“harm reduction” approach to responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. That includes calling for the state to release more people from prison out of a concern that proper infection control — including social distancing, clean hand hygiene, and access to consistent and reliable health care — is exceedingly difficult for those detained in a cell in close proximity to other inmates.

In bold white font laid out against a black background, the ad reads, ​“BEHIND BARS, COVID-19 SPREADS LIKE WILDFIRE.” It notes that seven Connecticut inmates have died and ​“hundreds” have been infected over the past four months of the pandemic.

“Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont’s plan is not working,” the ad reads. It urges readers to reach out to Lamont by email and social media to ​“tell him to listen to healthcare workers, public health experts, and the loved ones of those incarcerated in Connecticut.

“Tell him to do the right thing for our state. We must release those incarcerated to save them from infection and help control the spread of COVID-19.”

According to an email exchange reviewed by the Independent between New Haven Harm Reduction Working Group members and representatives from Hearst Connecticut Media, which is the corporate publisher of the Register, CT Post, and other local print papers statewide, Yale Global Health Justice Partnership Clinical Fellow Poonam Daryani and Yale School of Medicine Assistant Professor Ryan McNeil first sent over a copy of the ad to Hearst Connecticut on July 9.

Later that day, a digital media manager at Hearst Connecticut confirmed via email that the ad would run as a full page color ad in the Register and in the Middletown Press on July 12. He said the price of running the ad in those two papers would be $300.

The following day, Hearst’s director of customer experience, Kristen Cota, emailed Daryani, McNeil, and fellow working group member Cindy Prizio, to let them know that the ad ​“is not approved to be published” and would not be running in that Sunday’s print publications.

She asked the group to contact Hearst Connecticut Media’s credit team to get a refund for their $300 payment.

“Could you please explain why Hearst rejected our ad on the risk of COVID-19 in prisons,” Yale Assistant Professor of Epidemiology Gregg Gonsalves wrote in a subsequent email that afternoon, addressed to Hearst Connecticut President and Group Publisher Mike DeLuca and to Hearst Connecticut Vice President of Content and Editor in Chief Wendy Metcalfe.

“It was my decision not to run the ad and as Publisher, retain the right to accept or reject any ad,” Deluca responded by email four days later, on July 14. ​“I certainly understand your frustration.”

Deluca did not respond to multiple email requests for comment from the Independent as to the reasoning behind the ad rejection.

“Cover For The Governor”

Gonsalves, a nationally renowned infectious disease expert and longtime social justice advocate, told the Independent he’s flummoxed by the publisher’s unwillingness to print an advertisement voicing the concerns of public health experts like himself.

“Governor Lamont refuses to listen to the advice of public health experts, dozens of whom have appealed to him in a letter, asking him to consider reducing the number of people incarcerated in Connecticut, [and to] start frequent testing of all in these facilities,” he told the Independent by email. ​“We sent the ad to the Hearst Newspaper group because our Governor refuses even to talk to us. Now the leading local newspaper publisher Mike DeLuca decided he’d run cover for the governor and spike our last-ditch attempt to reach Ned Lamont and get him to hear our plea.”

“It’s bad enough that media outlets have not held Governor Lamont accountable for the severe and avoidable impacts of COVID-19 on people incarcerated in Connecticut, among other vulnerable groups,” stated McNeil. ​“But, by refusing to run an ad pointing out these failures, takes this complicity a step further by helping the Governor who has ignored pleas for action to escape accountability.”

Beatrice Codianni (pictured at right), the executive director of the Sex Workers and Allies Network and another local member of the harm reduction working group, said the message included in the advertisement reflects the real dangers that prisons present to public health.

“This pandemic is far from over,” she said by email. ​“Governor Lamont needs to let people go now. Even before the pandemic hit, I’ve seen people die needlessly in prison because of the lack of care. In prisons, there’s poor sanitation, terrible air quality, and everything spreads quickly – like a powder keg. Lamont uses the excuse that there’s nowhere to release people, but that’s simply not true. They have the ability to change the policy that bars people from being released to someone convicted of a felony, no matter how long ago it was.

“We want our community members home and will support them in finding a safe place to stay. Families are worried, people who are incarcerated are scared, even prison staff are at risk – Governor Lamont is putting everyone’s life in danger by his inaction.”

According to CTNewsJunkie, since mid-March, 1,344 Connecticut inmates have tested positive for Covid-19 and seven have died. The state Department of Correction has dropped the state’s prison population to below 10,000 for the first time in decades due to fewer admissions and more releases.

A DOC spokesperson previously told the Independent that the department’s staff has done an ​“extraordinary job” protecting the health of inmates and state employees during the pandemic. She said the department quickly implemented a ​“preparedness plan that called for enhanced cleaning, the two-week separation of new intakes from the rest of the prison population, and new screening protocols for both the incarcerated population and employees, and the establishment of both quarantine and medical isolation units.” She also said the agency has reduced the prison population by more than 2,500 people over the past few months.

In recent press briefings about a local uptick in gun violence this summer, top New Haven Police Department officials have said that they believe that a handful of recent shootings are connected to people newly out of prison.