It's all about the presentation
"Sentences passed by judges are never applied in full."
Without changing any sentence lengths, I always think the headline sentence should be the minimum time in jail, which is then extendable by n years depending on behaviour/risk to the public/whatever else they use to decide parole.
It's always a bit of a disappointment when I hear some evil b*******'s* sentence and a couple of seconds later have to remember to divide by two.
There's no doubt a good legal reason for the judge announcing it as they do (e.g. separation of sentencing guidelines and parole rules) but the press could do the math for us...
*this is not a comment on the subject of the article about whom I've not formed any opinion.