As you are aware, we have recently been in contact with Ryan Julison, Media Consultant for the Trayvon Martin family and their Legal Representatives.  Mr. Julison  graciously agreed, very forthrightly, to answer all questions posed to him.

With that sentiment in mind, as a reminder here are the questions posed to Mr. Julison Tuesday via e-mail, and his response received today in its full content follows below:

Dear Mr. Julison, thank you in advance for your candor.

1.) Are you currently under the advice of any legal representation in regard to your capacity to speak bluntly, truthfully, and honestly about the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and your subsequent involvement with regard to any aspect of media presentation?

In short: Are you lawyered up?

2.) It is reported you became the official media consultant of the Trayvon Martin family on March 5th of 2012. Is this correct? – Are you still working on their behalf in that capacity as of today?

3.) Who specifically contacted you and requested your services? On what date prior to Monday March 5th were you initially contacted?

Previously you had worked with Natalie Jackson on the Sherman Ware case. Had you any prior affiliation with any subsequent entity who became involved in the “case” against Trayvon Martin? In what capacity?

4.) During the March 8th press conference – which you coordinated – Tracy Martin stated he would not assist the Sanford Police Department in the recovery of telephone data from the telephone found at the scene. He would not provide the passcode to the account. Why?

5.) Where, and by whom did the term “White Hispanic” originate?

6.) From the outset, every media entity who engaged in coverage of the “initial story” used the race of Trayvon Martin and the race of George Zimmerman for the basis for their articles. Was race part of the media hook you established?

7.) Did you take any measures to stop, disuage or correct the media entities, of which you had specific contact, to correct their race-based reporting? Why or why not?

8.) Knowing now the FDLE and the FBI have fully investigated the “race angle” and found no justification for cause – do you still believe race played a factor in the events?

9.) On March 22nd at Mellon Park in Sanford FL you appeared on stage with various members of the New Black Panthers, the Martin Family, Benjamin Crump, Daryl Parks, and a host of interested parties. On March 26th Daryl Parks stated the Martin Family had no affiliation with the New Black Panther organization, yet they have appeared since 3/22 at numerous events together. How do you reconcile this contradiction?

10.) Did you at any time provide material information about the criminal investigation exclusively to the Media?

11.) What was/is you relationship with the following:

      • Matt Gutman (ABC)
      • Frances Robles (Miami Herald)
      • Joy-Ann Reid (Herald/NBC)
      • Russell Simmons (Global Grind)
      • Jeff Weiner (Orlando Sentinel)
      • Rene Stutzman (Orlando Sentinel)
      • Daralene Jones (Orlando Fox affiliate)

12.) Have you been financially compensated for any activity surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, including but not limited to your time an expenses?

13.) If so, in what amounts? (roughly)

14.) Were you part of, or impetus for, any decisionmaking to remove from public forums any information about Trayvon Martin including, but not limited to:

      • Social Media Accounts (any)
      • Public Records
      • Prior affiliations.

15.) Who provided the initial media package (early March) to the media including photographs?

16.) Why were only 5 year old photographs provided, and why was no more recent information provided?

17.) Have you ever looked at the social media history of Trayvon Martin?

18.) If so, how did it affect your decisionmaking moving forward?

19.) Why was the relationship between Brandy Green and Tracy Martin diminished?

20.) Who was the decisionmaker to remove Chad Green from any media exposure.

21.) Prior to taking on the job of Media Consultant did you do any independent investigative work on your own?

22.) Did you hire anyone to do anything as outlined in #21 above.

23.) Do you have direct knowledge of any specific acts of deception by any party involved in the case against George Zimmerman. Are you aware of any lies told by legal representatives of the Martin family?

24.) Who made the decision to change the last name of Javaris Fulton to “Martin”?

25.) Given the numerous parties physically, emotionally, and financially injured as a consequence to the racial narrative sold by a willing media – do you feel any:

      • – responsibility?
      • – remorse?
      • – regret?

26.) Have you seen any factual mistakes presented by myself? if so will you please outline and provide me the opportunity to review or correct?

27.) Are you going to pass your response (to these questions) through legal representation, in advance of submission, to parse any potential liability?

28.) Lastly, are you open to further contact and questioning either in writing, by phone, or in person?

Thanks again for your time, attention, honesty and candor.

Warmest regards,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Julison Response @2:12pm 11/29/12 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The owner of The Conservative Treehouse website emailed me a couple days back and asked if I would answer some questions about my role with the media in the Trayvon Martin story.

I felt this would be a good opportunity to provide information and explain how the media process actually works.

To begin, no, I haven’t ‘lawyered up,’ but I certainly will, if the need arises.

Natalie Jackson and I have worked on other stories in the past. We first worked together on the story of James Jones, the father who jumped on his disabled daughter’s school bus and confronted her bullies. We also worked on Sherman Ware’s story, among others.

For the record, I never encountered George Zimmerman or even heard his name until the Trayvon Martin situation. If he was involved in the Sherman Ware case, I knew nothing about it.

Natalie Jackson contacted me on March 5, 2012 and asked if I would consider volunteering my time to help a family in need reach out to the media. Shortly thereafter, I spoke with Ben Crump and Tracy Martin by phone and agreed to volunteer for a short time to assist with media outreach.

I ended my ongoing role as a volunteer for the family in early May. It was a pleasure assisting the Martin family and their representatives.

I have not been compensated for my work on this case. I did not bill the attorneys for any expenses. I do not work on contingency.

I have previously and subsequently volunteered my time and efforts for a number of people/causes, which can easily be documented with a simple Google search.

I thought it would be helpful to explain how the media process truly works in all PR settings. First, I don’t publish anything. I don’t operate a TV station, radio station, newspaper or blog.

In my capacity as a publicist, I serve as a facilitator between the media and my clients.

The process works like this:

PR person reaches out to media with a story idea. The media outlet then takes the idea and runs it through their process to decide whether or not to pursue the story. This process gets more complicated the larger the size and scope of the respective media outlet.

The media outlet then gets back to the PR person (or not, in many cases) and either asks for more information, agrees to move forward with the story or turns down the idea.

If the media outlet opts to move forward with a story, the PR person works to facilitate interviews and gather any other information requested.

The reporter then conducts the interviews and does their own independent reporting on the matter which would include contacting any other parties pertinent to the story and gathering additional facts.

Once the story is finished, it goes through a fact-checking and editing process. The reporter typically comes back with follow-up questions and requests for additional information.

The story is then reviewed again by higher-level editors before it runs. At the network TV level, stories are run through a Standards & Practices division.

There are many different processes and approvals that occur on the media side from the time a publicist pitches a story and a media outlet actually moves forward with the idea and runs the story.

In short, every media outlet conducts their own independent investigation of a potential story to verify information before it ever appears in print/broadcast. After all, they are ultimately responsible for the content they print/broadcast.

There seems to be many misconceptions on the role publicists have in shaping a story. While publicists provide information and certainly have a goal in mind for how they would like to see a story presented, we have no say in the final product.

We can make suggestions, we can direct media to interview subjects and provide detail, but the story that ends up on TV or in the paper/online is not reviewed or edited by anyone from outside the media outlet. We don’t have an opportunity to see the finished product before it runs.

I don’t sit with the broadcast editors and direct them on what shots to include in a story (or help with animation or editing 911 calls…).

Which leads to the question of the use of photography in this case.

When this process began, the Martin family was inundated for requests for photos of Trayvon.

I made a request of the family to receive as many photos as possible. The family sent me a ‘photo bucket’ with shots that were used in Trayvon’s funeral program. This included the Hollister shot and many other photos including baby pictures and family photos.

It should be noted that while it certainly benefits a family to cooperate with a photo request, they are under no obligation to provide any photos to media. It is done voluntarily to be helpful. Keeping in mind that Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton were grieving the loss of their son, they provided photos that were readily available to them at the time of the request.

Conversely, media outlets are under no obligation to use any of the photos the family provides. If for whatever reason the media is not happy with the selection of photos available, they are open to do their own reporting and fact-gathering in the search for additional photography. Any photo of Trayvon used in a media outlet was done at that media outlet’s sole discretion and choosing.

Regardless of which photos were used in a story (and many times baby photos were used), there was no deception intended and the media reports always included Trayvon’s age (17).

Regarding the use of race in the media reports, I didn’t include the race aspect in any pitch I presented to media (that can easily be verified with documented fact). As I have indicated previously and publicly, to me, the fact that an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by an armed captain of the Neighborhood Watch and wasn’t arrested was newsworthy enough without any element of race included. To be clear, I was only one part of the team working on behalf of the Martin family.

Random facts:

I never received any information from law enforcement about the ongoing criminal investigation.

Not sure which media outlet coined the term ‘white Hispanic.’ I had nothing to do with that designation.

I am disgusted by the NBPP bounty. That kind of activity has no place in this situation, on either side. Throughout this process, I’ve had no contact with anyone from the NBPP. Regarding the March 22 event, it was pure chaos with tens of thousands of people and hundreds of media outlets. If anyone from the NBPP was on-stage, I wasn’t aware of it.

I did not deal with Trayvon’s social media presence and didn’t take anything down.

My role in this situation was facilitating media relations for the Martin family and their representatives. I didn’t have involvement with ongoing family matters (Chad, Brandi Green, Jahvaris’ name change??, Tracy Martin not providing phone data, etc.).

As a publicist, particularly in a fast-moving situation like this, I don’t ‘investigate’ families I work with, but I do ask questions that I think may provide relevant and useful information. Unless there is something obvious in a Google search (and many times there isn’t), I rely on information provided by the families with whom I’m working.

Regarding various members of the media, I work with a wide variety of them on a regular basis, on a range of stories. I pitch stories and they either do the stories or they don’t. I am friendly with them, but not friends with them. We have a professional relationship.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~  End of letter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unanswered questions:

4.)  During the March 8th press conference – which you coordinated – Tracy Martin stated he would not assist the Sanford Police Department in the recovery of telephone data from the telephone found at the scene. He would not provide the passcode to the account. Why?

7.)  Did you take any measures to stop, disuage or correct the media entities, of which you had specific contact, to correct their race-based reporting? Why or why not?

8.) Knowing now the FDLE and the FBI have fully investigated the “race angle” and found no justification for cause – do you still believe race played a factor in the events?

9.) On March 22nd at Mellon Park in Sanford FL you appeared on stage with various members of the New Black Panthers, the Martin Family, Benjamin Crump, Daryl Parks, and a host of interested parties. On March 26th Daryl Parks stated the Martin Family had no affiliation with the New Black Panther organization, yet they have appeared since 3/22 at numerous events together.  How do you reconcile this contradiction?

23.) Do you have direct knowledge of any specific acts of deception by any party involved in the case against George Zimmerman. Are you aware of any lies told by legal representatives of the Martin family?

25.) Given the numerous parties physically, emotionally, and financially injured as a consequence to the racial narrative sold by a willing media – do you feel any:

      • – responsibility?
      • – remorse?
      • – regret?

26.) Have you seen any factual mistakes presented by myself? if so will you please outline and provide me the opportunity to review or correct?

27.) Are you going to pass your response (to these questions) through legal representation, in advance of submission, to parse any potential liability?

28.)  Lastly, are you open to further contact and questioning either in writing, by phone, or in person?

[“I ended my ongoing role as a volunteer for the family in early May”.]

…”I have never scrubbed my Facebook page.  Go on my Julison Communications page and see for yourself.  Click on March, 2012 and you’ll see that every post you say was deleted is indeed right there and always has been”.

“Once you have reviewed both of these items, I would appreciate you correcting the this on your site”. – Ryan Julison

Liars Poker

[“I ended my ongoing role as a volunteer for the family in early May”.]

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