Sadriya Image: ....twisted wrecks, burnt flesh, screaming faces, lacerated bodies, smoke and flames. The images so terribly familiar now, they blur into each other. If we are to cover Iraq properly, the violence is bound to dominate. On the other hand, you could argue we don't do a very good job at it. There is an average of 800-900 violent incidents reported each week - shootings, kidnappings, mortar and rocket attacks, roadside bombs, car bombings.
We can only report on a handful of these. So inevitably, the focus often ends up being on the biggest attacks. It's something we're not always comfortable with in the bureau. We had the dilemma again with the weekend attack on the Sadriya market, when the news agencies billed it as the worst single bombing since the invasion.
It was - from one blast. But in November 2006 more than 200 people died and another 400 were injured in an attack in Baghdad's Sadr City. It was a single incident, but it involved several bombs and mortars.
In other words, through a common journalistic device - first, worst, biggest - there is a risk of obscuring the wider truth of the level of violence.
In the weeks before the Sadriya attack, there had been several other massive car bombings each one of which killed more than 70 people , as well as the usual harvest of death squad victims dumped around the city....
It was - from one blast. But in November 2006 more than 200 people died and another 400 were injured in an attack in Baghdad's Sadr City. It was a single incident, but it involved several bombs and mortars.
In other words, through a common journalistic device - first, worst, biggest - there is a risk of obscuring the wider truth of the level of violence.
In the weeks before the Sadriya attack, there had been several other massive car bombings each one of which killed more than 70 people , as well as the usual harvest of death squad victims dumped around the city....
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