From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

The newspapers of Baghdad, says Guardian columnist Salam Pax, are like the famous bread of Bob Al-Aga, hot, crispy, and cheap.

One he writes is even published by a pastry salesman.

The Jordanian paper Al-Arab al-Yam reported that more than 60 papers have appeared, up from five during Saddam's reign. Everyone seems to have a voice

in Baghdad. Of course, some voices are louder than others. For example, the U.S.-led occupation force,

which is currently devising a code of conduct for the press.

Mike Furlong, a senior advisor to the Provisional Coalition Authority, told the AP that, quote,

there's no room for hateful and destabilizing messages that will destroy the emerging Iraqi democracy.

But U.S. officials there say there will be no attempt to block criticism of the

occupation. NPR's Deb Amos joins us now from Baghdad. Deb, welcome to On the Media.

Thanks, Brooke. And that number's up. It's somewhere around, oh, a little over 100 newspapers now

that are on the street. Wow. Who's publishing them? Everybody. For example, I went the other day

to the Office of the Independent Iraqi Political Prisoners, and they have a newspaper that's

named after the day that George Bush ended the war. They have news and a variety of things,

and on their front page every day, they have a story from one of the prisoners that recounts the experiences of them in prison.

There's political cartoons in that paper.

The one that people read more than any is one that would be translated into the Times.

El-de-Mann, it was published for a long time out of London and it was an old Minister of

Information employee who parted company

with Saddam and moved to London. That paper is the most professional looking of any of them.

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