AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Aaron Glantz, he is with Free Speech Radio News, Pacifica Radio and reported for us as well on Democracy Now!; Sidney Schanberg; and James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times. Your response to that, the dangers that reporters face. And now, campaigns against any of those who talk about the targeting of reporters, you know, about what happened with Eason Jordan, a CNN top executive dared say off the record he thought that reporters were being targeted, and he is out. Now, Linda Foley, the president of the Newspapers Guild, mentioned this at the Media Reform Conference, the targeting of journalists and a campaign to have her ousted.

SIDNEY SCHANBERG: My own feeling and my own experience as the targeting is either non-existent or very rare, because most of my experience is that when you are in the field covering the story, and an American unit is there, that you will be protected by them. They're going to look after you, even if you are not embedded and even if they know you're writing things that they don't agree with.

AMY GOODMAN: Even if you are an Arab reporter?

SIDNEY SCHANBERG: I don't know that. All I really know is that the idea that they are targeting Western press or American press does not strike me as valid, not from my experience.

AARON GLANTZ: Well, I don't think they're attacking American press or Western press, as such, but I think that they're indiscriminately shooting at people, and so I have had a gun pointed at me in the course of working. I have had a gun pointed at me by American soldiers numerous times and felt that my life was threatened by an American soldier, simply because they were so scared and trigger-happy, but I have never felt unsafe at the hands of an Iraqi fighter, because they know the lay of the land and they understand the situation. Then, in addition to that, as more and more Western journalists are afraid to work in Iraq, and I myself am afraid to work in Baghdad at this point, as more and more Western journalists pull out, the Iraqi journalists who remain and the Pan-Arab journalists who remain are specifically being targeted by the U.S. military, I believe, when they broadcast controversial material, and then you have the parallel track of propaganda by the U.S. military, launching the satellite station Al Hura, broadcasting from Virginia to the Arab world, launching Radio Sawa, the Voice of America in the Middle East, which was started after VOA reporters interviewed Mullah Mohammad Omar. Voice of America Arabic Service was shut down, Radio Sawa was created. So there's a real propaganda effect in the Arab world to make sure that people do not see these images.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask why –

SIDNEY SCHANBERG: I'd just like to throw in one thing.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

SIDNEY SCHANBERG: Soldiers are scared in war. That's the truth. And they will fire at something that moves, and it may be you. And they may fire just out of their fear that something bad is going to happen to them, because they're under fire. But using the word “targeted” means you point your weapon, you know who you’re -- you know, it implies that you know who you are shooting at, and you’re deliberately firing at an American reporter. As for the --

AMY GOODMAN: Any reporter.

SIDNEY SCHANBERG: Yeah. As for the Iraqi reporters who are left behind, and Aaron mentioned, yes, I can see the American establishment there, the military establishment trying to suppress any reports that they don't like and doing more to the Iraqis than they would do to an American. I mean, that is very likely. I mean, the military wants to win the war. They know that if -- I mean, to the military, we are annoyances at best. And so that we have to accept that and know that we are going to have to go around that or whatever. Iraqis have less power to do that, but I still would question the word “targeted.”

JAMES RAINEY: Yeah, I have to say something, too, because I talked to many photographers who worked over there, and actually, they, I would say, almost universally admired the American soldiers there. I think the thing we have to be careful is what happened in Vietnam, where decisions are made in Washington, you send these often 19- and 20-year-old kids over there to carry out that mission, and they're frightened. And they're doing their best, I think, most of them under very difficult circumstances. I haven't been in Iraq, but I have interviewed many photographers who have been. They felt a great deal of empathy for the soldiers there. That does not mean they necessarily supported or were opposed to the war. I think there are photographers in both camps. So, I think it's kind of dangerous to suggest they're out -- at least on the American side -- that they're out there specifically shooting at journalists. That's not something I studied, so I probably shouldn't say more.

I wanted to say one other thing, too, about the casualty pictures, which is that there is a considerable difference between the casualty pictures shown of Americans and Iraqis. I think if you read some of the big papers in this country, including The L.A. Times, The New York Times, there have been quite a few photos of Iraqi casualties. And if you read closely and looked closely, there are plenty of images there for you to make up your mind about how you feel about the level of bloodshed. The interesting thing about that is some people see these photos and see reason to be opposed to the war. Some people have seen some of these photos and they see sacrifice, and American sacrifice and Iraqi sacrifice, and there was a survey done of American readers; I included this in my story, and we quote a woman in our story, who sees one of the dead G.I.s and she says, “Yes, I'm glad you ran that picture, and I'm glad you ran it because it doesn't tell me this is an unjust war. It tells me that, you know, these guys are giving their lives for freedom.”