On July 19, the Council on American-Islamic Relations sent out a press release that included the Facebook page for Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center's "International Burn a Koran Day" on September 11. A few days later, the obscure Florida pastor began his ascent into the international media spotlight. Within 10 days,
Jones was on a CNN show with Rick Sanchez. Then, with the date approaching, the attention snowballed.
According to Yahoo! News' Michael Calderone, more than 50 U.S. newspapers featured the pastor's plans as a front-page story on September 8. The media, it appears, could not get enough. As
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations, "It's regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distressful, disgraceful plan and get the world's attention."