BOB GARFIELD: To embed or dis-embed is the choice facing many reporters now. This week, CNN's Walter Rodgers abandoned his military assignment of the life of a so-called unilateral. It was unilaterals who brought us continuing views from Baghdad. Not just the recent ones of the statue in the square, but from hospitals and the street. Their reports span Iraq from Umm Qasr to the Turkish border. Now the story moves into the next phase --"The whole hearts and minds thing" as ABC's John Donvan told the Washington Post, that quote "cannot be done from inside an embed." It can be argued that it's the most important part of the story, but reporters say they have been repeatedly obstructed by coalition forces -- sometimes for no apparent reason. Geoff York is a reporter for the Toronto Globe & Mail and he recently wrote about the frustrations of the non-embeds. He joins us on the line from Kuwait.

GEOFF YORK: There have been several cases of people being arrested or thrown out of the country simply because they're not an embedded reporter. The worst was this incident of two Portuguese journalists and two Israeli journalists --unilaterals -- who were arrested by American troops -- actually physically abused, according to what the journalists said --treated very, very badly -- and eventually thrown out of the country. I think they were thrown out even without their vehicle or their equipment, and-- generally treated, from what they said, worse than what they would normally receive from an enemy.

BOB GARFIELD: These reporters were arrested on what charges?

GEOFF YORK:I don't believe there's any charges at all! The main problem is that the coalition forces don't really know what a unilateral is! I've actually experienced it as being something like a caste system, and we're the lowest of the low. I've many times seen groups of embedded journalists around me in some parts of Southern Iraq - in Basra or Umm Qasr or other places - and they've been so-- terrified by the military into thinking that they're being given confidential military secrets that they can't tell to anyone that they won't even talk to the unilateral journalists! And nor will some of the military officers! I've actually been in situations where a British military officer was talking to an embedded journalist and as soon as he noticed that I was nearby and I was a unilateral journalist, he actually walked away to prevent me from hearing what he was saying to the embedded journalist. So basically just because you're independent and you're not an embedded journalist - you're not with them - you're treated as somebody who is suspicious, you know, uncontrollable, possibly a threat, possibly a spy -- they just many times don't know what to do with us and don't want us there!

BOB GARFIELD:What you're saying is actually alarming on two fronts. First -- it suggests that the military has somehow co-opted the embedded journalists and made them a kind of semi-official organ of the military -- and secondly it makes the relationship between the military and non-embedded journalists even more tenuous than it has been historically, and-- we know historically it has been a very dicey affair.

GEOFF YORK: Yeah, in a way this is -- in a way this is nothing new. I mean the-- the Pentagon has never really trusted independent journalists. We all recall in the Gulf War in 1991 where only tiny little hand-picked groups of so-called pool reporters were allowed any access to the war. The Pentagon has been boasting about how open it's been in allowing some reporters to embed - but it's actually been a great propaganda victory I think for the Pentagon because these embedded reporters have provided incredibly dramatic images of fighting that everyone's been mesmerized by, and people think that they're getting access, but they're only seeing it through the very, very narrow perspective of the embedded reporters.

BOB GARFIELD:One of the advantages of the embedded program is that the reporters -- yes, they certainly get the military's point of view firsthand, but it enables the military to protect them from harm. The Pentagon has a war to run. Should it be responsible for protecting the well-being of the unilaterals?

GEOFF YORK: Well, that's interesting. Of course we've never asked for protection. Most of us are quite willing to operate freely without the protection of the military. We're not getting in between the, the fighting parties. We're letting them do their thing, and we just want to go behind them and find out what's happened after they've swept through these towns. There's only a tiny handful, relatively speaking, of, of unilaterals who've managed to get across the border anyway, so it, it's very difficult to - for them to argue that we're somehow a, a burden or a problem for them.

BOB GARFIELD:One more question, Geoff. ABC's John Donvan -Nightline had tried to make it as a unilateral and he, he just - in his words "threw up his hands and said this isn't working" and decided to embed himself. Have you ever thought about throwing up your hands and tried to embed yourself with a coalition unit or are you going to just continue to try to-- make your own way?

GEOFF YORK: Well, I, I've considered it. I thought about it -- but first of all the reality is that unless you're one of the top American networks or one of the top American or British newspapers, you have no chance of embedding anywhere interesting. So that's, that's problem number one. Problem number two is, as I said, the embedded journalists are not really able to tell the whole story - so although it's tempting sometimes to try to do that -- and certainly you'd be escorted across the border and into all the places that are difficult for us to go to -- you know ethically it's a - it's a difficult issue. I know that some-- media organizations including CBC, the main television broadcaster in Canada have actually decided that they will deliberately not embed themselves simply because of the ethical issues.

BOB GARFIELD: Geoff, thank you very much!

GEOFF YORK: Okay, thanks.

BOB GARFIELD: Toronto Globe & Mail reporter Geoff York is currently based in Kuwait.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, one embed strikes out on his own, and why coalition voices never say "Fedayeen."

BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from NPR.