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It seems the kidnappers of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston feel that, frankly, their former captor should have been a little more thankful for their hospitality.

Seriously.

From the Times of London, via NRO Media Blog:

The kidnappers expressed bizarre resentment that Johnston, 45, had done nothing to thank them for their hospitality while they held him at gunpoint in a tiny cell.

“We used to give him everything he wanted,” Abu Zobayer, an aide to Dagmoush, said.

“We spent £70 on his food every week. The Matouk restaurant [one of the best eateries in Gaza] got rich because we had to feed him.”

Johnston has said that he fell ill from the food he was served. Zobayer commented: “It’s not our problem that we gave him everything and he only ate a little.”

Certainly, the kidnappers could have treated Johnston worse – they apparently didn't torture him, at least physically. But, as my mom always said, if you kidnap someone and hold them at gunpoint for 114 days, don't expect a thank you. Even if that Matouk hummus is the best in town.

One has to imagine Hamas is happy with the opening line of this Washington Post story: "An ebullient and relieved Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent set free Wednesday after 114 days as a captive in the Gaza Strip, suggested that the turning point leading to his release was Hamas's takeover of the strip."

We're thrilled for Johnston's release, of course. But we're also interested in the motivations and tactics behind it. For starters, we know Hamas has gotten a big PR boost from the Johnston affair, with the former captive applauding its efforts and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband saying Hamas played a "crucial role" in Johnston's release.

Said Johnston: "If Hamas didn't come in and put the heat on, I'm pretty sure I'd still be there."

Not everyone is offering up love for Hamas, however – which, in case you've forgotten, "is widely considered a terrorist organization committed to fundamentalist Islamic rule" and the eradication of Israel. As if to remind the press corps reporting on Johnston's release, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office issued a statement calling for the release of soldier Gilad Shalit, a prisoner of Hamas.

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Johnston Ordeal Continues: The horrific ordeal involving kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston continues with the release of a video in which Johnston is outfitted with an explosive vest. "The situation now is very serious," he says in a video you can watch over at the BBC. "As you can see I have been dressed in what is an explosive belt, which the kidnappers say will be detonated if there was any attempt to storm this area. They say they're ready to turn the hideout into what they describe as a death zone if there is an attempt to free me by force."

Hostage In A Toy Factory: New York Times reporter David Barboza went to a Chinese toy factory to meet the maker of a toy that had been recalled in the US. And then he was detained for nine hours. There were "hours of negotiations, the partial closing of the factory complex and the arrival of several police cars, a handful of helmet-wearing security officers and some government officials, all trying to free an American journalist and his colleagues from a toy factory." The takeaway? That for all the rhetoric about everything in China being government-controlled, factory bosses have more power than one might think. Argues one business professor: "China effectively has no oversight over anything."

The Mess In Iran: Speaking of the Times, if you haven't read the grim Iran story that was printed yesterday, you really should check it out. Notes the paper: "Iran is in the throes of one of its most ferocious crackdowns on dissent in years, with the government focusing on labor leaders, universities, the press, women’s rights advocates, a former nuclear negotiator and Iranian-Americans, three of whom have been in prison for more than six weeks." And what, with all that going on, is the Iranian news media focused on? "…attention has been strategically focused on [President Mahmoud ] Ahmadinejad’s political enemies, like the former president, Mohammad Khatami, and the controversy over whether he violated Islamic morals by deliberately shaking hands with an unfamiliar woman."

Sudan: Sudanese authorities have expelled a BBC correspondent for hostile reporting. Jonah Fisher has been accused by the government of being a Western media propagandist. Writes Alfred Taban in The Khartoum Monitor, lamenting the lack of press freedom in the country: "soon the pages we are writing on will come out blank because the coverage of most issues of interest will have been banned."

Zimbabwe: Alex Perry, the Time reporter who was arrested for "working as a journalist without accreditation" in Zimbabwe, has written an essay about his time in jail there. Here's how it opens: "A bad jail wastes a body quickly. When I entered Cell 6 at Gwanda police station, I was fit. After five days in a concrete and iron-bar tank, with no food and only a few sips of water, my skin was flaking and my clothes were slipping off. A prison blanket had given me lice. The water I had palmed from a rusty tap in the shower had given me diarrhea. Under a 24-hour strip light, I hadn't slept more than a few minutes at a time. And I stank. So many men had passed through Cell 6 that they had left their smell on the walls, and while I was making my own stink, the walls were also passing theirs onto me."

Gaza: BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza City on March 12. Now, the New York Times reports, a "previously unknown group in Gaza sent a statement to news organizations on Sunday claiming that it had killed" him. For now, the BBC is treating the claim as a rumor since there is no independent verification.

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Sudan: Sudanese authorities have expelled a BBC correspondent for hostile reporting. Jonah Fisher has been accused by the government of being a Western media propagandist. Writes Alfred Taban of The Khartoum Monitor, lamenting the lack of press freedom in the country: "soon the pages we are writing on will come out blank because the coverage of most issues of interest will have been banned."

Zimbabwe: Alex Perry, the Time reporter who was arrested for "working as a journalist without accreditation" in Zimbabwe, has written an essay about his time in jail there. Here's how it opens: "A bad jail wastes a body quickly. When I entered Cell 6 at Gwanda police station, I was fit. After five days in a concrete and iron-bar tank, with no food and only a few sips of water, my skin was flaking and my clothes were slipping off. A prison blanket had given me lice. The water I had palmed from a rusty tap in the shower had given me diarrhea. Under a 24-hour strip light, I hadn't slept more than a few minutes at a time. And I stank. So many men had passed through Cell 6 that they had left their smell on the walls, and while I was making my own stink, the walls were also passing theirs onto me."

Gaza: BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza City on March 12. Now, the New York Times reports, a "previously unknown group in Gaza sent a statement to news organizations on Sunday claiming that it had killed" him. For now, the BBC is treating the claim as a rumor since there is no independent verification.

Chris Dodd Is Totally Going In My Top Eight: MySpace, "a place for friends," is now a place for presidential candidates. As the New York Times reports, the site is introducing a politics section this week, which "will make it easier for the site’s 60 million American users per month — many of them from the traditionally elusive and apathetic youth demographic — to peruse the personal MySpace pages of, so far, 10 presidential candidates." Vote, consider yourself slightly more rocked.

The Wisdom Of Crowds: Wired magazine and NYU professor Jay Rosen wants to bring the open-source model driving Wikipedia and Linux to journalism. "Assignment Zero will use custom software to create a virtual newsroom that allows collaboration on a discrete, but open-ended, topic from the very start," reports David Carr. Regular citizens will do the lion's share of the work, but experienced journalists will oversee and edit it. "This is a new approach to watchdog journalism. Crowdsourcing is engaging the wisdom and expertise in our communities early on in the reporting process,” Jennifer Carroll, vice president of new media content for Gannett, told Carr.

Johnston Still Missing: A week ago, BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was abducted in the Gaza Strip. "We are growing increasingly concerned about Alan's safety," says the BBC. "Over the past week, we have worked intensively with the authorities in Gaza and elsewhere to try to locate Alan and we continue to receive assurances that everything possible is being done. However, it is disappointing that after seven days there has still been no firm word either about his whereabouts or his condition." As the Guardian notes, a number of foreign correspondents and aid workers have been kidnapped in the region in the past year, but all have been released, usually within days.