COMM 209 -- Iraq parliament bomb -- color story

A gripping story by Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post on the bomb blast in an Iraqi parliament cafeteria yesterday. Read it carefully for the way it's put together. The lede puts us as readers right at the scene:

BAGHDAD, April 12 The bomber blew himself up no more than a few yards away. First, a brilliant flash of orange light like a starburst, then a giant popping sound. A gust of debris, flesh and blood threw me from my chair as if I were made of cardboard.

I was lying on a bed of shattered glass on the floor of the cafeteria in the Iraqi parliament building, covered with ashes and dust. Small pieces of flesh clung to my bluejeans. Blood, someone else's, speckled the left lens of my silver-rimmed glasses. Blood, mine, oozed from my left hand, punctured by a tiny shard of glass.

"Are you okay? Are you okay?" asked Saad al-Izzi, one of The Post's Iraqi correspondents, standing over me, his face framed by an eerie yellowish glow, his voice distant. I did not reply.

It's a model piece of deadline writing.

Note the use of descriptive detail. Instead of saying people left half-eaten lunches on their trays, Raghavan notes a lot of them were eating chicken. Look for images that appeal to the physical senses, the sound of people stepping on glass, the feel of dust in your mouth. Not a lot of adjectives. (More than I like, but still not a whole lot too many!) Direct quotes. As you read down, Raghavan will quote from the tape recorder he inadvertently left running during the blast.

Raghavan's story is a sidebar, a story that runs to the side of the main story and throws more light on a related angle. In this case, what it was like to be there. The main story, by the way, is called the mainbar. What else would you call it? To see how the sidebar and mainbar fit together, follow this link to the front page of The Post's website. The sidebar is off to the left (or was at 7:34 a.m. Eastern time*), under a picture that shows people running from the cafeteria. The mainbar, headlined Attack Is Worst Strike in Protective Green Zone," is on the right, the first of four Iraq war stories stacked in what is traditionally the slot for the most important story in a daily newspaper. A "tease" (summary of what's inside) under the head gives the news:

Iraqi legislator says new Baghdad security plan is "dead" after apparent breach leads to bombing that kills eight, injures 23 in parliament cafeteria.

The sidebar only supplements it by giving color. But the color story tells what it was like to be there. That's important.

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* By the time we look at these stories in class at noon today, The Post's website will have gone through at least a partial redesign. So the links, photos and page layout may or may not still be there.