Whatever you say in an interview will be compressed, often severely, before it’s published or broadcast. Researchers analysing US network evening news found that the average uninterrupted soundbite from a presidential candidate fell from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to 9.8 seconds in 1988 (Adatto, 1990), and that compression has only continued since. The unit worth preparing isn’t a full answer with every qualification attached — it’s a message short enough and complete enough to survive being cut down to almost nothing.
A well-designed message states the point plainly, doesn’t depend on the specific question that preceded it to make sense, and could be read on its own as a complete sentence rather than a fragment of a longer explanation.
Try this now. Take one of the two or three messages from the last lesson and write it as a single sentence you could imagine as a headline or a caption under your name. If it only makes sense alongside the question that prompted it, rewrite it so it stands alone.
These messages don’t need to cover everything you know. They need to be the specific handful of sentences you’d be glad to see quoted exactly as said.
