Bad move for the insurgency

I have a natural suspicion for documents that suddenly appear in the media (Bush national guard forgeries, Downing Street memo, Zawahari letter to Zarqawi, etc.) so I did not make anything of the business to business (terrorist to terrorist) letter giving advice on the PR war in Iraq. In that letter Zawahari notes that too many publicized beheadings might not be the best tool to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. If it was real, perhaps we will see another letter soon with Zawahari chastising them for attacking their friends, the journalists. Nearly all foreign journalists and most US journalists have been quite helpful to the insurgent's cause. Today, the insurgents attacked the Palestine hotel that many journalists have been staying in. That was not a smart move, as at least 20 were killed. It seems the whole plan was faulty from beginning to end. In addition to attacking a group that has been mostly sympathetic to their cause there was a hostage plan involved:

In this Foxnews report:

al-Rubaie told The Associated Press "The plan was very clear to us, which was to take security control over the two hotels, and to take the foreign and Arab journalists as hostages to use them as a bargain."

I wonder who they were planning on bargaining with? Another interesting question is how differently the media will treat this direct assault by the insurgents as opposed to the accidental collateral deaths that occurred when the US troops were exchanging fire with hostiles a couple of years back. My prediction is that the indignation will not be quite as strong as it was back then when they accused US forces of deliberately trying to target journalists (remember Eason Jordan, formerly of CNN). Now that a deliberate attack has been made by insurgents, what inner struggles will the media go through with their conflicting interests?