Â鶹Éç

A regular entry that highlights strong Â鶹Éç journalism.

How do you cover Iraq day in day out? How do you get people interested in one explosion after another, in random, nonsensical attacks, in countless hijackings and executions? As I write I'm listening to the World Service in the background and I hear the ominous "we're just getting news..."

"...of an explosion in a crowded market in the Iraqi town of Hilla, south of the capital, Baghdad. Preliminary reports say at least fifteen people have been killed, and more than thirty others injured. Few details are available. Hilla is a mainly Shi'ite town which has witnessed a number of bombings in the last two years."

How in that context do you communicate to your listeners across the world that Iraq is not all about about deaths, and women screaming their grief at funerals - but can also be about the small random pleasures of the day today? The Iraqis are as excited as the English or the Uruguayans about the one event that's managed to bring the world together for the past 2 weeks, the World Cup.

The difference is that with a supply of 4 or 5 hours of electricity a day, you hope and pray that you can catch a football game - any game, you can’t afford to be picky - when the current comes back on or the diesel generator splutters back into life.

How do I know this? Hugh Sykes, to my mind one of Radio News' most engaging, humane reporters, has been in Baghdad for a few weeks to give one of our correspondents there a short break. Hugh knows Baghdad well; which is why he never takes risks but still manages to go out with a translator, a body guard and a tape recorder attempting to capture the human dimension of the conflict, the everyday...

Yesterday he filed an extraordinary package from a sports café in Baghdad - Café Arabia - where he sat chatting to a group of young people about the usual stuff - who they support, who they want to see win the cup etc etc. And in between shouts of "Brazil!" or "England!", you learn that not so long ago boys and girls used to play football on the streets but that it's far far too dangerous to venture out now.

He talks to a young man who idolises Beckham and carries his picture around; someone else who can recite the names of the Arsenal team past and present - and we realise that people are always anxious, tense, and very rarely venture out their neighbourhoods. Too many unpredictable dangers.

Anyway, fabulous report. You can listen to it by clicking here. A lesson in how you can humanise a conflict without even trying.