BOB GARFIELD: We're back with On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Despite the additional risk confronting unilaterals, those reporters initially assigned to military units increasingly are choosing to take that route -- against the explicit wishes of the Pentagon. The New York Times reported Friday that at least 20 have already done so, including those from CNN, ABC, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. NPR's John Burnett will soon be among them. Since before the war began we've had weekly conversations with John as he traveled with his military unit, but as the main story moves off the battlefield, he's moving too. By Monday he'll have cut his military ties to report on his own from Baghdad. John, thanks for checking in!

JOHN BURNETT: Thanks Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The way you dis-embed is simply to pack up your kit and leave?

JOHN BURNETT: [LAUGHS] It's as simple as that. Basically the embed process is kind of in tatters. I have gone wherever I could get a helicopter ride, wherever I could get a Humvee ride, and the public affairs people, much as they have tried to facilitate it, have been overwhelmed, and so-- I learned that the best thing to do is to use your own initiative and just go where I want to go and tell the public affairs folks later.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Earlier in the show we spoke to a reporter that's been a unilateral throughout the whole process and he says that one of the most difficult parts of the job is that they're treated as second class citizens or worse --sometimes they feel that they're actively abused or obstructed by the coalition forces as they try and report -- even when there's no indication that they're getting in the way of the war.

JOHN BURNETT: You know I've heard these stories, Brooke, where they've been begging fuel, they've been begging MRE's-- they've been stopped at roadblocks-- there are several unilaterals that have been traveling with this last unit I'm on and-- I think they finally cut some deals with the battalion commander and were able to travel-- you know reasonably well. But I would, I would do it all over again. It's been-- fascinating to see how war is made from the inside; it's still a - it was a dangerous city. We came under fire last night; I was in my first fire fight -- and a guy with a 50 caliber machine gun, you know, protected us basically.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Are you worried that you're not going to be able to move around as freely now that you don't have those M-16s nearby?

JOHN BURNETT:No, I'm not because I'm going to start working just with a translator and a driver and I think actually the violence in Baghdad is decreasing day by day; I mean it's certainly still there and there are going to be guerrillas and there are going to be some suicide bombers, but-- really it's time to leave. I mean I don't - just - the military story is drying up. It's time to move on.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So as you look back on this, what, now about 6 weeks, how would you assess the whole embed experience?

JOHN BURNETT:Well I guess some conclusions -- I ended up with a, a really wonderful man-- probably the senior reporter in the entire embed corps if you will and he's - he's George Wilson who worked for the Washington Post for many, many, many years -- now he has a column for the National Journal and is one of the only correspondents here that covered Vietnam, and George and I were stuck-- at the headquarters battalion for a couple of nights and had some long conversations about his work in Vietnam and how different it was and how much better it was because you could cover both sides and you could jump into a village and find out exactly what happened, and you could use the Pentagon's statistics and find out, you know, was it a really pacified village. I'm not sure this is a, a workable arrangement - the whole embed process. I think it's an unnatural way to practice journalism. But--one of the good things to come out of this is that the whole experience has helped I think bridge the gap of distrust between the military and the media which is going to yield better defense reporting in the future. Because they're going to be more open with the media and I think we'll understand them better. It's been a fascinating experiment.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you're planning to stay now in Baghdad? For how long do you think, John?

JOHN BURNETT:Oh, probably about a week and a half. The story is changing-- pretty quickly now; we've made the transition from combat to the rebuilding of Iraq it seems to me. I mean there are still some issues in the north, but I'm not going to cover those anyway, so-- the big story is how are they going to reconstruct this shattered country - and I want, while I still have a little bit of energy, to get a piece of that.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And after that, you think NPR will call you home?

JOHN BURNETT:I'm calling myself home. I'm-- [LAUGHS] -I've been-- dreaming of-- cold beer and barbecue and my family and-- after a shower and a plate of real food-- I think life's going to see very different.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: How long since your last shower, by the way?

JOHN BURNETT: Three and a half weeks. [LAUGHTER] And all that that implies. All I can say is thank God for baby wipes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: John, it's been so great talking to you--thank you so much for doing this. We'll talk to you next week!

JOHN BURNETT: Okay, Brooke. Bye, bye.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:NPR reporter John Burnett soon will be un-embedded in Baghdad. For a transcript of this conversation or anything else that you hear on the program, just go to our web site at onthemedia.org. [MUSIC]