Real-Life Math -- Solution
You're a media trainer preparing a seminar about the differences
between TV, radio and newspapers. As you prepare, you look at the length of
stories provided on TV compared to newspapers. This is what you find:
If
the newscast has 5 90-second stories, and a typical 90-second story has 500
words, how many words does the entire set of stories contain?
5 stories
x 500 words = 2,500 words
The local newspaper has 3,000 words on its
front page alone.
3,000 - 2,500 = 500 words
The newspaper has
500 more words (or the equivalent of one TV news story) on its front page.
This
fact is often surprising for people. TV provides much less space for stories.
Understanding this helps people learn that in order to get their message across
on TV, they are working with a very limited amount of time.
For TV interviews,
it's extremely important to get a message across in the best and most interesting
way, and in the fewest possible words. If you're giving an interview in print,
you may have the luxury of giving more detail to the reporter.