Jonathan Franks, Crisis management consultant for American hostage families | Pod Hostage Diplomacy

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Jonathan Franks is a crisis management consultant for families of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas. Jonathan has worked with the family of Marine veteran Andrew Tahmooressi held in Mexico as well as Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Navy veteran Michael White both held in Iran. All these men have now been freed. Jonathan is now working with the family of American and former US Marine, Trevor Reed currently held in Russia since August 2019.

On this episode, we have the honour of speaking to Jonathan himself. We discuss the work he does for American families, his background as a former staff member within the US House of Representatives and his key advice for American families with a loved one held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas. We also discuss campaigning approaches, how to communicate with the public, message discipline, engaging with the media, appearance on camera, racism in media coverage and workarounds as well as what the US government needs to do better to bring Americans held overseas home and what the public can do to help.
If you prefer, you can watch the video version of this interview on YouTube.
For more information on Jonathan Franks, please check out the following:

• Jonathan Franks' Twitter account

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1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Who is Jonathan Franks? (00:00:48)

3. How Jonathan helps American families (00:01:55)

4. Jonathan’s background (00:03:01)

5. Trevor Reed overview (00:08:20)

6. Key advice for American hostage families (00:16:54)

7. Playbook for American hostage families (00:20:06)

8. Campaign to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (00:21:07)

9. US government support for hostage families? (00:24:45)

10. Appearance on camera (00:27:41)

11. Don’t try to be a subject matter expert in foreign policy (00:32:18)

12. Message discipline (00:33:05)

13. Hope-based campaigning (00:37:14)

14. Racism and workarounds (00:41:00)

15. What the US government needs to do better (00:48:24)

16. How the public can help (00:59:05)

17. How to contact Jonathan Franks (01:02:59)

18. Jonathan’s message to the families (01:03:31)