I really am happy that Jill Carroll was released and appears to be unharmed. There have not been enough of these things with good endings, so this is truly an inspiring day.
But as I sit here watching the live press conference in which a representative of "The Christian Science Monitor" just wrapped up his speach, the cynic in me can't help thinking about how great it must be for them.
They get their reporter back alive and have a happy ending. But more importantly, whether they admit to it or not, they've gotten all of that free press over the last few months and will continue to receive it for quite some time.
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3 comments:
Looks like we had differing opinions on this one!
Bob,
Do you think they wanted the free press all this time? The CSM is a fantastic publication on their own merits (wondering about the name? more detail here.)
And why not mention UMass-Amherst? She was a grad from the Journalism department here. They got alot of press locally too, lots of professors from the area were interviewed about her, the Daily Collegian ran a full page ad every week since she was kidnapped asking for her release. Was that self serving?
And why not journalists in general? They got alot of free press (haha!) for their profession.
All I'm saying is that while they might have gotten 'free press' for one of their correspondants being kidnapped, it's incidental to the fact that she was a neutral journalist trying to cover a story, was kidnapped, and deserved to be freed.
K, I don't read the CSM so I don't know much about it, but I know you wouldn't waste your time reading it if it was crap, and as always I respect your opinion.
However, I think you may have missed my point. I'm not saying that anyone was glad this happened or that their efforts to get her back were not 100% sincere. I believe they all wanted her back safe and sound and that all of their efforts were soley for that reason.
But no marketing guru could ever have come up with a better way to get their name out (and for free mind you) and I believe that somewhere over there, someone is thinking about that with a big smile on their face.
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