I don’t know whether Brendan McDermid knew when he moved it that his picture of a shocked woman covered in muck and blood at the scene of a steam pipe explosion in Manhattan was the “iconic image” of the incident but he must have had an inkling by the time he saw it on the cover of The New York Post, USA Today, splashed across five columns in the New York Daily News and inside the New York Times next day. The New York Times online even wrote about it - http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/200 7/07/19/a-bloody-face-in-the-blast-and-t he-man-who-helped-her/.

It was only part of a wider team effort, of course, some of which can be seen here - http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/sli deshow?collectionId=778 -  and included valuable contributions from non-editorial staff, but that this picture was also one of the first frames moved on the story that day would have helped keep all eyes on the Reuters feed. As Senior EIC Jim Bourg in Washington commented wryly, “always lead with the iconic images”.

Further images can be seen at http://www.msnbc.com/modules/interactive .aspx?type=ss&launch=19838329,19844481&p g=1 (if you set your browser to accept pop-ups).