From WNYKRs in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. The war has started, and so far there is a pervasive feeling of deja vu,

as we hear talk of the Basra Road surrendering Iraqi troops, and even Peter Arnett.

What's different this time versus the 1991 Gulf War is that we aren't just hearing about the night skies over Baghdad. We are seeing them in real time. The number of journalists in and around the region is estimated to be more than 700. Those in Baghdad are at the mercy of the Iraqi government, of course, and there are concerns that they could eventually be taken into, quote, protective custody.

The International Federation of Journalists, an organization that represents more than a half million journalists around the world,

sent an 11th hour appeal last week to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and to the Iraqi administration.

The appeal asks for the leaders in this war to give instructions to army commanders

to respect the rights of those hundreds of journalists and media staff.

Sarah DeYoung is the human rights officer for the IFJ, based in Brussels.

When I spoke to her Thursday, she said that the power of the Iraqi government to take

reporters hostage worries her greatly.

That is definitely one of our major concerns that the Iraqi authorities will use

all foreign journalists as human shields.

Of course, we're very concerned about that, but the Pentagon themselves are very concerned about that as well, even though they have apparently expressed the fact

that they're unwilling to take responsibility, should that be the case. In fact, President Bush

did explicitly warn journalists twice a nationally televised address is to get out of Baghdad,

presumably because they're in some great peril.

That's right. We have ourselves appealed to all foreign media currently still in Baghdad to get out

as fast as they can, and we're really appealing to them to get to secured locations. But at the same time,

we're quite conscious that nobody can force a journalist to do so,

and that journalists are there voluntarily.

Now, there are Geneva Convention protocols concerning journalists and their protection.

...