NC inmate wins prison journalist of the year for stories that tell gritty truth
.jpeg "Phillip Vance Smith II photographed at Nash Correctional in 2024.")
Every morning about 3:30, Phillip Vance Smith wakes in his prison cell, sits up in bed and starts writing with pencil and paper while the other inmates sleep — a ritual performed in rare moments of privacy.
The words he scratches out illustrate the daily trudging of forgotten men: prisoners waiting in line to buy postage stamps at the canteen, spending their nickels and dimes on AA batteries to keep an AM/FM radio running — all at inflated prices.
“Every blue moon I might buy a bag of chips or a soda,” one inmate told Smith for a magazine story last year. “I can’t afford much anymore because inflation has decreased the amount of food and supplies I can buy. I spend more to get less.”
At 48, Smith has managed to report and edit a prison newspaper, conduct interviews inside and outside the walls of confinement and publish articles in both Slate and HuffPost, all while serving a life sentence.
His HuffPost piece from 2024 described understaffing so severe that prisoners had to break up a bloody fight between inmates by locking the attacker in a bathroom, unable to find a correctional officer.
His lede on that gem of a story:
“When the wooden cane smacked the prisoner’s head, its curved end snapped off and slid 20 feet to my prison-issued sneakers.”
Last week, Smith took Prison Journalist of the Year honors at the Stillwater Awards, presented in part by the Society of Professional Journalists. Judges noted his ability to interview multiple sources and draw out compelling quotes — a chore for any reporter, let alone one living behind razor wire.
“It’s definitely nice to be recognized,” he told me on a call from Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro. “To be honest, prison journalism is really thankless work. Most of the people that I serve time with, they never see what I write.”
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‘I cannot undo the harm I caused so many people’
Twenty-five years ago, Smith walked into the Public Safety Center in downtown Raleigh, placed a Bible on the desk and turned himself in.
Cary police had been searching for him after they found Rico Ronnell Waters, 24, dead in the passenger seat of a still-running Nissan Maxima parked at the Woodcreek Apartments.
Later, on trial for first-degree murder, Smith tearfully testified that he turned to selling drugs when he got out of prison on previous charges, re-entering society with just $3.36 in his pocket, unable to find housing or a job.
Waters was a customer, and Smith had only planned to rob him that day. But Waters pulled out a plastic gun that Smith thought was real, so he shot him five times and left him in the car.
Jurors sentenced Smith to life, and before leaving for prison, he apologized to his victim’s family and offered a prayer.
“Father God,” he said, “I want to thank you for loving me. I want to thank Father God for giving me the strength to get on the stand and tell the truth. I ask you to shine your light on those young brothers who find themselves in me and Rico’s situation.”
On his website, Smith describes himself entering prison as a broken and uneducated man who turned to writing as a refuge. He wrote poetry, fiction, memoirs and eventually — with help from supporters on the outside — news stories.
“I cannot undo the harm I caused so many people,” he wrote, “but I strive to prevent others from following in my footsteps.”
‘Those brave enough’
In 2015, Smith started working as a shipping clerk for the printing plant at Nash Correctional, where inmates produce government documents.
A supervisor noticed his computer skills and made him a graphic designer, a promotion that got him recruited to the Nash News — the prison newspaper.
Smith got a crash-course on how to tell stories clearly and quickly, learning the time-tested “inverted pyramid” structure pounded into every Journalism 101 student.
And from there, he leaned into the world he saw up-close.
For a story about prison lifers and their rebirth behind bars:
“A different Ron Kenney walks the prison yard these days. Gone is the rebellious twenty-something that went to long-term lock-up with a smirk.”
The News published only with leftover paper and leftover ink from contracted jobs, and only when nothing else was scheduled to print.
The News still publishes after 20 years, and many of its reporters also produce NC Prison News Today, a statewide publication. One of its former staffers started the Franklin Standard, which won a Stillwater award for best new publication.
The Department of Adult Correction keeps an exhibit of those newspapers in its downtown office, and spokesman Keith Acree noted that Columbus Correctional is starting a community college class on podcasting.
But on receiving his honors this year, Smith noted that prison journalists work under a constant threat of retaliation. “So I dedicate this award to those brave enough to report the truth.”
Smith works with a team of librarians, lawyers and prison advocates who help him conduct research and arrange for interviews with people outside the prison.
In April 2024, Huffpost published his piece titled, “I’ve Been Incarcerated For 22 Years — And I’ve Never Seen Prisons This Out Of Control,” which tied escalating violence to a thinning prison staff.
“I’m as familiar with human brutality as a shellshocked combat veteran,” Smith wrote in the nationwide publication. “Until recently, I had never considered understaffing a contributor to violence and recidivism. I do now. ... Only we — the incarcerated — know what it’s like to live in fear, not knowing whether there will be enough correctional officers on staff to stop someone from bashing in your head with a wooden cane.”
Smith got transferred to Neuse a few months later. At the time of his transfer, he hadn’t been cited for an infraction in 16 years.
“Nobody will ever say I was transferred for writing,” Smith told me. “But it was at the time my writing picked up.”
A request
Over the phone, I asked Smith if he had a favorite story. Every journalist does.
He told me his best work wasn’t really even journalism but a legislative bill that he and another prisoner proposed in the NC Law Review. If it passed, it would give prisoners serving life sentences a path to parole after 20 years, provided they completed 15 years worth of work and school requirements.
It has never made it out of committee.
But like any journalist, Smith welcomes the chance to tell stories, to shed light, to use his voice for more than hollering at the darkness.
“Please don’t make me look bad, sir,” he asked as he hung up the phone.
I wouldn’t know how.
This story was originally published May 11, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NC inmate wins prison journalist of the year for stories that tell gritty truth."