Why aren't press playing up the hostage crisis?

It amazes me that the even the British press are downplaying what I consider to be the next hostage crisis. If you go the Daily Mail website, the lead headline is about a fifteen pound speeding tax for victims of violence...while the hostage crisis is just another headline. In the Daily Telegraph, their lead story is on Gordon Brown and penion problems. Has the government told the press to cool it? Or, are the newspapers afraid to show too much support to Tony Blair? That perhaps this crisis can also be blamed on Iraq?