Religious figure calls for peace in holiday sermon--is this news?

From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

The chief Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais, gives an annual sermon decrying extremism and terror. Money quote:
'Islam is the religion of moderation. There is no room for extremism in Islam,' he said. He called on Muslims to 'protect non-Muslims in the Kingdom and not to attack them in the country or anywhere. Islam is a religion of peace that abhors attack on innocents.' Militants were using misguided interpretations of Islam to justify violence, he added. 'Because Muslims have strayed from moderation, we are now suffering from this dangerous phenomenon of branding people infidels and inciting Muslims to rise against their leaders to cause instability,' Al-Sudais said. 'The reason for this is a delinquent and void interpretation of Islam based on ignorance ... faith does not mean killing Muslims or non-Muslims who live among us, it does not mean shedding blood, terrorizing or sending body parts flying.'
Is there some reason this didn't get more play? It strikes me as important.

Damn right it's important. And it should sure as heck get more play, especially when lightweights like James Dobson get a whole weekend's worth of play out of SpongeBob SquarePants.

But should we be surprised that the media don't give it much play? On some level, we should naturally expect that the chief imam of the Grand Mosque is a good and reasonable man, and that he'll make this sort of pronouncement from time to time, just as we expect that prominent figures in other religions will make comparable statements on comparable occasions.