Tragedies: plane crash and unwanted horses

The biggest tragedy in the past week is definetely the plane crash. At the moment when the Continental Airlines plane hit a residential house near Buffalo, New York, late Thursday, I can only imagine the catastrophe vaguely. Althrough from tons of feed news that I received, I was pretty clear about the 5 W of the tragedy. The infomation was more like a statistics to me: all 49 people aboard were dead, a person in the home were killed. So abstract.
Right away, I opened a new tab to visit NBC Nighly News out of a habit.There were already some clips about the event. I was amazed by the speed of the reporters there. It was shortly after the crash, but the reporters have already found some families of victims. I even don't know how they could make that. I opened one clip of an interview with a man whose younger sister was on the plane. After watching the video, I was totally stunned by the power of a good soundbite and the magic of asking questions.
The brother was very very sad at that moment. He told the reporters he was on his way to the airport to pick his sister up when he heard about the crash.
"What has been through your mind the last minutes?"
"I am just think about my mother. They are on vacation in Florida.I have to call my father down there to tell them what's going on."
"How was she taking it?"
"Um...to tell you the truth, I heard my mom making some noises that I've never heard before."
The details the young man revealed can easily strike viewers down. It is so imaginable, sorrowful and impressed. A good soundbite can make people cry.
In the reading, Shook says soundbites can be categorized into two kinds: informational and emotional. That is why I am so fond of the soundbite I used in my second package. It is from Dr. Haden, MFA vice president of livestock operations. He said, “This is a real problem and if you've ever watched one starve, it's not a good picture. It's one of the saddest things you can see."
This is another sad story in this week. Some horses are abandoned in the street, starving to death. The reason for this bad situation is really complicated. I did have difficulty squeezing so much information into a 1:30 piece. The first version of my script is about 2:20 long. The trick is I have to chop off a lot of words without diminishing preciseness. That is not easy. Now I can understand why someone wrote this at the beginning of a long letter, "I am sorry I don't have time to write a short letter."