High Stakes Media Advocacy

Almost 45 months ago a teenager named Genarlow Wilson was convicted of rape and sent to prison in a case that received almost no media attention. Yesterday Genarlow Wilson was released from prison in the glare of a national spotlight on racism and the criminal justice system. Georgia’s high court declared yesterday that Wilson’s imprisonment represented “cruel and unusual punishment”.

After more than two years of imprisonment for consensual sex with a girl two years his junior (he was 17, she was 15), Wilson provided a quote that made the Associated Press Quotations of the day “At times, we’ve dealt with adversity. Now my family, we finally get to deal with happiness”.

Wilson also offered advice to other teens: “They should be very hesitant before they join certain crowds and make certain decisions”. Remarkably, this quote mirrors the message that Wilson’s mother, Juannessa Bennett, has been giving throughout the incident, first broadcast in August 2004: “I’m not saying that we should be able to beat the rap. I just feel like the punishment is too harsh”.

Georgia Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson used the opposite tone when he remarked on the high court decision to release Wilson: “[Georgians] may cheer the release of Genarlow Wilson, but they should be scared to death of what that means for their own safety and the safety of their children. This is scarier than Halloween”.

The November issue of Essence explores why some civil rights cases attract the spotlight, while others are virtually ignored. In the Essence piece, two brutal crimes are detailed, both of which have received very little national attention or support, and the author questions why these cases are virtually ignored on the national landscape. Yesterday Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Charles Steele remarked “There are many, many more Genarlow Wilson cases before us in society throughout this country”.

So how did Juannessa Bennett create the national public outcry that led to her son’s release? Bennett and her attorney (a high power litigator with a history of media advocacy) used online strategies, persistent media strategies, message discipline, authenticity, and third party validators to rewrite the story of Wilson’s incarceration.

A website www.wilsonappeal.com was established; the site gave updates on the case, collected petition signatures, collected donations, and tracked media coverage. The site was clean, crisp, and credible. A wikepedia entry was posted and updated regularly.

Prominent voices were drawn in to the debate, including Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Rev Al Sharpton, the Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson, and others. At least one prominent rally drew supporters and media attention.

Media advocacy included outreach to news media, political media, sports media (such as ESPN who picked up the promising football player angle), legal media, and celebrity media. Lengthy feature stories helped turn the framework from a rape case to a consensual sex case. The call to action was consistent from beginning to end: Wilson made a mistake but the punishment was too harsh. The message tone was consistent from beginning to end: regretful of the youthful decision but resolute in standing up for the truth. The media sparks largely fell into three areas: new legal activity such as hearings or rulings, in-depth stories published on the case, and grassroots activity such as protest rallies.

It took almost two years of media advocacy before the story received some momentum in national media coverage, and nearly three years of media advocacy before the story received major widespread coverage. The differences between the first public mention of the Wilson case in 2004 and the coverage yesterday about his release merit a close look at the media advocacy in this case.

Genarlow Wilson was convicted in February 2004. The first national story about the case appeared on August 3, 2004 when the AP reported on the guilty plea of two of the six teenagers charged in the case. The prevailing attitude then was that this was a case about the gang rape of a 15 year old girl. In that 175-word AP story there was no mention of “consensual oral sex”, the term used in the AP lead yesterday. The original story reported on accusations of “rape”, “child molestation”, “sex acts”, “sexual battery”, and “aggravated child molestation”. The prosecutor in the original story says he “offered them a chance to plead guilty to lesser charges and recommend a 15-year sentence with five years served in prison”. A reader looking at the original AP story would walk away with a wholesale different impression of Genarlow Wilson than a reader looking at yesterday’s AP story.

The first national broadcast interview occurred less than a week after the AP story on Fox’s O’Reilley Factor. Despite the sometimes-hostile tone to the interview, it was an important venue to add nuance and momentum to an otherwise difficult story. O’Reilley quickly turned to the issue of single motherhood in an attempt to focus not on the justice of the sentence but rather the blame for the sex act. O’Reilley asks Wilson’s mother, “Miss Bennett, your son didn’t have a father. The father, left, correct…And do you believe that you supervised your son enough to keep him out of trouble like this…” Despite that difficult exchange, Bennett was able to convey important background information about the case and stay on message about overzealous prosecution.

Following the Fox report, the Atlanta Magazine began an in-depth look at the case. On December 28, 2005, MSNBC’s Abram’s Report did a segment on Wilson sparked by the impending release of the Atlanta story. In this segment the nuances of the case began to sincerely emerge, and Atlanta reporter Chandra Thomas pointed a finger at the “overzealous prosecutor”.

Two months later, on March 9, Good Morning America broadcast a segment, sparked by an appeals court hearing in the case. The graphic read “Was Teen’s Punishment Too Harsh?” For the first time Genarlow Wilson appeared on national news, saying about his refusal to agree to a plea bargain “It’s all about doing what is right. I’m just standing up for what I believe in”. That segment was part of a longer Primetime Live special that aired on the same day. The headline story was “Teen Sex Tape; Outrage After Teen Gets 10 Years for Oral Sex”.

MSNBC then re-entered the fray with a debate about the case, using a callous tone that cast doubt on the legal strategy employed by the Wilson team; the host asks Wilson’s lawyer “Do you think Genarlow Wilson might really ever see the light of day as a result of what you’re doing in the appellate court, or do you think he’s a cooked goose under the statute?”

The story then built momentum in the national press. After a December 2006 rejection from the Georgia Supreme Court, the national story exploded. On December 21 the New York Times published an editorial with the headline, “Free Genarlow Wilson Now”. That was followed by a second editorial by the New York Times on April 30 titled “Georgia’s Shame”. That same month Maureen Downey from the Atlanta Journal Constitution headlined her column, “Break legal ranks to right a wrong”.

High profile and credible voices helped propel the story. In May 2007 former President Jimmy Carter wrote Georgia authorities in support of Wilson’s petition to be freed. In July 2007 Barack Obama weighed in, saying “He has now been in prison for two years and they have not been willing to commute his sentence. Just gives you some perspective on our justice system at the moment”. That same month Al Sharpton led a rally at the courthouse.

Even with major momentum in the media, maintaining a framework in support of Wilson was difficult. In July 2007 the prosecutor’s office released the amateur videotapes of the sexual encounter between Wilson and the teen girl. Fox’s O’Reilly Factor and some other outlets broadcast the videotapes. Bill O’Reilly said “The reason we’re reporting this story is sometimes the media glorifies people who don’t deserve to be glorified.” The tapes emerged as lawmakers were considering legislative relief for Wilson. Johnson claims that watching the tapes “changed my mind”, and he become a strong voice in support of Wilson’s incarceration.

Yesterday’s media coverage hailed Wilson’s release as a major victory. The legal and civil rights story about Genarlow Wilson certainly will continue to be amplified. But the compelling advocacy story is about Juanessa Bennett, who in a one-woman campaign turned a small and routine news story about rape into a national spotlight on injustice in the criminal justice system.