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

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Even before the House and Senate authorized President Bush to wage war on Iraq, the media were prepping for battle. It's a costly campaign, literally, for broadcasters whose budgets were already strained by coverage of the war on terror.

TV guides Max Robbins recently checked in on the networks.

They all say they will have the resources that their corporate bosses are committed to it

and committing to them really giving comprehensive coverage.

Of course, you hear reports now that CNN and ABC News are talking about joining forces.

I mean, I had one person inside CNN tell me that they had put aside about $35-36 million

is basically an Iraqi war fund, if you will.

And that's for all sorts of things, satellite uplinks, getting people in and out of a tough region,

and making sure they have as much protection as they possibly can. This is the first time I've heard

where networks are issuing biological suits. That's a new one on me. I mean, that goes way beyond

flack jackets and metal helmets. Max Robbins writes the Robbins Report for TV Guide.

Chris Kramer, the president of CNN's international networks, joins us now on the line from Slovenia.

Hello.

Hi there.

So we just heard that the networks are arming their reporters with special suits and medicines

and maps to make covering a future war in Iraq a little safer.

Is that true for CNN? How are you preparing your team? Well, we have in the last few weeks, in fact, in the last few months,

introduced a very stringent new policy at CNN, which is we require all of our staff who are

likely to go to hostile areas to have been trained.

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