Everything Will Change Now

A quick note -- did you wonder about the difference in the amount of attention given to the kidnapped Fox journalists compared to Jill Carroll? I mentioned it here.

Well, the group holding the two has wised up: no claim of responsibility -- more important, no visuals -- no attention.

So they've released footage of the two men along with the requisite demands. MSNBC covered that before going to JonBenet rehash -- er, updates -- at 10 am.

I will now point out what I pointed out with Ms. Carroll, however: you will not see the families being interviewed, exploited for the purposes of what George Will called "the pornography of grief." They've made taped statements, which seem pretty clearly coached by someone based on what might help get their family members back -- not on what works best for the US media.

Does the media treat their own differently?

You do the math.

Update: Clearly Fox has decided the wraps are off. It's been interesting to compare Fox and MS over the last few days. While Fox has been covering JonBenet, they've put it into a rotation along with a heavy focus on Iran, along with discussions of whether Israel blew it, etc etc, while MS is pretty much all JonBenet all the time. In any event right now they're heavily emphasizing the tape on their captured colleagues along with discussions of the type of work they were doing before, thinly veiled explanations that they were doing work essential to getting out the story of the Palestinian peoples' plight, along with discussions of how Palestinians of every political stripe have insisted over the last few days that it is critical that journalists be in the Palestinian areas in order that those stories be told.

The stress is beginning to tell on their chief Jerusalem correspondent Jennifer Griffin, who apparently has been doing double duty trying to do whatever could be done to secure their release over the last nine days. Now they have her trying to report on this tape but she (understandably) sounds as if she's just going to break at any second.

Update: via Instapundit, Jules Crittenden asks a vital question: if indeed it is the terrorist's video which triggers the coverage, is that not proof that the press jumps to the terrorist's tune? Whether they should or should not do so (and under which circumstances) is a complex question, but the simple fact that they do seems to be quite clear at this point, yes?

Comments

[Glenmore]

I've been watching Fox's Jennifer Griffin for the past month or so - she's good! I don't know of another correspondent who seems so well-prepared, who seems to really know and understand what she's talking about, and who still manages to present smoothly. And no BS either - if she doesn't know the answer to a question that comes up, she says so (but it isn't often). Sure wish there were more like her.

[jpe]

It's not that media dances to the terrorists' tune, it's that media dances when media is available to be shown.

[Wayne]

One difference between FNC's earlier coverage and now is that the terrorists have made their demands known - and they are ridiculous, apparently demanding the release of every Muslim jailed in the U.S.

So Fox is fighting back by showing that the men were not anti-Muslim but instead brought news of what Muslims were going through.

I think that they have concluded that they are not dealing with the kind of people that decapitated Danny Pearl but rather someone who could be reasoned with.