Jumping on the One Happy Ending So Far

Like a beacon shining through the much-discussed “fog of war,” the daring rescue of 19-year-old Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch has instantly become, in Hollywood terms, the first “feel-good” story of the war.

Lynch’s friends and family have been seen all across the TV dial since U.S. special operations forces extricated the Palestine, W. Va., resident Tuesday from Saddam Hospital in Iraq, where she was being held.

In the media free-for-all that has ensued, virtually anyone who has known or come into contact with Lynch is in demand.

CBS’ “48 Hours” will devote an hour to her “remarkable rescue” on Friday, having already promoted an “exclusive” interview Wednesday on “The Early Show” morning program with an Iraqi hospital staffer who treated her. Lynch’s father, Gregory Sr., could be seen on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” while her brother Gregory Lynch Jr. and three friends appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

Outside the Lynch family’s white clapboard house in Mulberry Run hollow, dozens of reporters and camera crews milled about for most of the day. Because there is no cell phone service in the foothills of Palestine, the media camp-out, while crowded, was notably low-key. Now and then, someone would do a live stand-up from the broad front lawn, but through a long afternoon on a warm spring day, many just sprawled on the grass and relaxed.

Family and friends of the Lynches seemed bemused by all the attention from TV and newspaper reporters.

“When I woke up this morning, all these trucks were in my yard,” said Chris Joy, 30, who lives across the narrow dirt road from the Lynches. Seven television satellite trucks had parked in front of his trailer home, right next to his shaggy brown horse.

Lynch -- who suffered serious injuries, including at least one gunshot wound, broken legs and a broken arm -- had been missing since March 23, when the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company was ambushed near the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

Sources say networks are clamoring for an opportunity to hear from Lynch herself, though given her condition, dramatic footage of her rescue and transfer to Ramstein Air Base in Germany will probably have to do, at least for a while.

Underlying at least part of this attention is that Lynch is a demographically desirable protagonist. She’s blond and attractive, and you can imagine the meetings as Hollywood agents and producers -- some of whom have already expressed interest in a TV movie of the story, as they invariably do in response to such events -- contemplate what star from the youth-oriented WB network might be right for the role. That she comes from the biblically named town of Palestine is a bonus.

Even in news, as has been repeatedly demonstrated, telegenic victims garner a disproportionate amount of air time -- from intern Chandra Levy to models Kristine Johnson and Linda Sobek, whose photos were gobbled up by news outlets when they disappeared in 2001, earlier this year and in 1995, respectively.

Yet just as significantly, such widely publicized stories seldom provide happy endings, especially in time of war. That explains why ABC rushed a movie about the rescued Pennsylvania miners trapped last summer onto the air in November, a project with an upbeat resolution that delivered respectable ratings.

For TV outlets, criticized at times for providing only a superficial view of the war, the Lynch rescue represented a dramatic yet easily digestible human interest story.

An accelerated news cycle means viewers’ fascination has a way of quickly fading. Sources say interest has already cooled, for example, in a TV movie about kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart, whose recovery last month sparked a media frenzy. Representatives for the teen’s family have ceased returning calls from those seeking to acquire story rights, and the case’s sordid details have rendered an account based on the public record more problematic.

For now, however, Lynch’s story has all the requisite elements any producer of news or entertainment could ask for -- a ray of sunshine amid the fog not only for war-weary viewers, but even for media outlets themselves.

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Times staff writers Stephanie Simon and Vicki Kemper in Palestine, W.Va., contributed to this report.