BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. All told, the events that unfolded in Iraq over the last week made it one of the most dramatic of the war so far. We saw the restaurant where Saddam was rumored to be dining reduced to rubble. We saw American troops advance into the center of Baghdad. We saw both the statues and the regime of Saddam Hussein toppled, and in the chaos - this:

ANNOUNCER:2:25 a.m. The Al Jazeera network reports its reporter, Tariq Ayoub, has died after being injured this morning when a U.S. air strike hit a building housing Arab media. [GUNFIRE] 3:58 a.m. Four Arab networks report loud explosions around the Palestine Hotel where many international journalists are staying. There are reports at least 5 journalists are injured. The Pentagon says sniper fire was coming from the hotel.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:When the smoke cleared, we learned that two journalists at the Palestine Hotel had been killed and 5 more seriously injured. The reporters' death toll in this conflict now stands at 12. Based on that figure, the L.A. Times did some heart-stopping math. Here's a quote: "In the 21 years between 1954 when the French were defeated in Indochina and 1975 when the combat stopped in Vietnam, 63 journalists were killed. If the conflict in Iraq were to last as long as the war in Southeast Asia, and current casualty rates remained constant, 4,368 journalists would die." Representatives of editors in 115 countries have since written to Donald Rumsfeld to condemn the quote "inexcusable and reckless American attacks on journalists." Victoria Clarke is the spokeswoman for the Pentagon.

VICTORIA CLARKE: I personally have probably had 300 individual conversations with news organizations and bureau chiefs and some individual correspondents, and the essence of everyone one of those is: "War is a dangerous, dangerous business and you're not safe when you're in a war zone."

BOB GARFIELD:The Committee to Protect Journalists has sent a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld calling for a thorough investigation of the U.S. strikes against known media locations. CPJ's acting director, Joel Simon, joins me now to discuss this week's events and the toll the war has taken on journalists. Joel, welcome to On the Media.

JOEL SIMON: Thank you!

BOB GARFIELD: How has this come to pass that the casualty rate has grown so large? Is it because there are simply more journalists there with greater access to the front lines?

JOEL SIMON: I do think that's one reason. I mean this is probably the best-covered war in history if you look at the numbers. But you know there's cross-fire, there's bombs falling--; we have one journalist killed by a suicide bomber. So you have a large number of journalists, an incredibly dangerous battlefield and-- a large number of risks.

BOB GARFIELD:Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokesman said in effect well, we, we warned them! Nonetheless has the military offered an explanation for why it would be sending a tank round into a hotel which they know is-- the headquarters for many, many foreign journalists?

JOEL SIMON: The only explanation that the Pentagon has provided is that they were returning sniper fire from this hotel, and that account has not been borne out by the journalists we've spoken to. And even if that were the basis, frankly we think firing a tank round at a hotel full of journalists in response to a-- alleged sniper attack is disproportionate.

BOB GARFIELD:Earlier this week Vice President Cheney said that -- I'm quoting him here -- "The suggestion that somehow the United States would have deliberately attacked journalists is obviously totally false." Now we have seen some very impassioned reporting from those who were at the Palestine Hotel who were aware of no sniper fire coming from their location, who think that the falsity of that notion is not so obvious.

JOEL SIMON: Well our position at this point is that we have no evidence, certainly, to conclude that any of these attacks were deliberate, but we are demanding a full investigation and the basis for that is that there are, I think, some well-grounded suspicions; certainly they've been articulated. It seemed striking that there were 3 separate attacks on 3 different media outlets in the course of the same morning, and it's also troubling that the Al Jazeera office which was hit in Baghdad resulting in the death of one journalist was also struck by U.S. forces in Kabul during the Afghanistan campaign. And those facts are troubling, and I certainly think they demand further investigation.

BOB GARFIELD:Elsewhere in this show we're going to hear a conversation-- with a unilateral reporter who says that he and other unilaterals have been systematically harassed by coalition troops, in some cases taken into custody and expelled from the country. Does that square with the reports that you're getting and does it make you any more suspicious of the events in Baghdad?

JOEL SIMON: Well it absolutely squares with what we've found. And there's no question that U.S. forces have treated journalists who are not embedded, who are moving through this area independently, with suspicion, and that is of concern. On the other hand, there's a huge gulf between detaining and expelling a journalist and deliberately firing at, you know, or targeting a media facility. And so I would certainly not suggest that the actions of expelling journalists is evidence of-- deliberate targeting.

BOB GARFIELD:Well much has been discussed about the relative advantages and disadvantages of being an embedded reporter versus being a so-called unilateral. But has it come to pass that being an embedded reporter is the only sanctioned means of reporting and, and that the government is essentially saying unilateral reporters -- that is, those not operating directly under our protection and supervision -- are persona non grata?

JOEL SIMON: I think that's absolutely fair and accurate, and that has been our concern-- from the very beginning. We wrote a letter to Secretary Rumsfeld on March 6th -- before this conflict began -- essentially saying that while we welcome the embed program and we think that -that it's given us unprecedented-- access to the perspective of the U.S. military - that's only one part of this story, and that the--military in the field needs to at least tolerate the presence of journalists and recognize that while they are there at their own risk, it's certainly not up to the military to protect them - they do have a right to be there, and unfortunately I don't think there has been an acknowledgment that, that journalists in fact do have the right to report independently in, in a war zone.

BOB GARFIELD: Thank you, Joel.

JOEL SIMON: Thank you, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD: Joel Simon is the acting director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. [MUSIC]