heroic Hamas

updated twice below 

As I predicted when Johnston was kidnapped (a story I started following when it happened and which I tracked through its many ebbs and flows when the MSM did not), Hamas has lost no time freeing him and grabbing credit for it:

The leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said Johnston's freedom showed his Islamist movement had brought order to the Gaza Strip, where it seized power in a bloody coup last month.

He said: "We have been able to close this chapter which has harmed the image of our people greatly. The efforts by Hamas have produced the freedom of Alan Johnston."

Meshaal regrets the episode:

"We had expressed our regret in the name of the Palestinian people at the abduction of the respected journalist Alan Johnston, which represented an offence to our people.

"Today we celebrate with Johnston’s family, the BBC and our people the freedom of Alan Johnston,” Mashaal said.

I eagerly await Alan Johnston's mash note to Hamas.

UPDATE 1:  That was quick. CNN just carried part of a news conference with Ismail Haniyeh and Alan Johnston. Anderson Cooper was the height of caution as he discussed the live footage with his colleage Ben Wedeman. Cautiously, Cooper reminded the audience that of course Johnston was still in the hands of Hamas and that he was in front of the camera with the "dismissed" Palestinian prime minister.

Then the camera and mic stayed on Johnston, and Cooper and Wedeman fell silent as Johnston talked about how he had feared for his life, how he thought this would go on and on, how his abductors felt quite comfortable with their situation until a few weeks ago, when Heroic Hamas took control of Gaza and provided safety and security to all its people blah blah blah.

To which CNN's Wedeman enthused that Johnston was obviously no worse for the wear, because he was talking so volubly–and Wedeman got all excited about his scoop, now "confirmed" by Johnston, that Johnston's kidnappers were somehow in league with Fatah.

And so does CNN act as the eager public relations representative of Hamas.

Is everyone comfortable with that? I'm not. Because the MSM seems to have learned nothing since Jill Carroll, swathed in full hijab, was "interviewed" by Iraqi intermediaries upon her "release" from captivity in Baghdad.

This is what I mean when I say that it's not the content of the stories that makes "hard news." A "report" on Alan Johnston's release such as the one by Ben Wedeman, which serves to smear Fatah on Johnston's say-so and on Hamas's behalf, isn't hard news. It's sensationalism. 

UPDATE 2: Here's a link to the AC 360 transcript, which isn't complete as of this writing (the show just ended).