Major newspapers and even local ones (if they still exist) have been so dumbed down in the past few decades. I would estimate that many are now written to target a less-than-high-school literacy level. Worse, news often seems to be written to elicit outrage or fear (probably because "engagement").
I can't access the article, so I don't know which newspaper they were subscribed to. But, given the wording of "the leading national newspaper", I can assume it would be "Le Monde".<p>The audience for the written paper is not less-than-high-school educated. Do you think the wording is at this level ?<p>Eg: <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/08/pisa-2025-unprecedented-drop-in-french-students-performance-echoes-worldwide-decline_6757286_7.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/08/pisa-202...</a>
Le Monde is mainly entertainment/preachy articles nowadays. Content and writing is usually better in the "Le Monde Diplomatique", although it's more politically biased.<p>English version: <a href="https://mondediplo.com/" rel="nofollow">https://mondediplo.com/</a>
In terms of the actual ideas being promulgated, Le Monde is approximately CP-level.
> I would estimate that many are now written to target a less-than-high-school literacy level.<p>I would have imagined they would have been targeting less than high school literacy since their inception. At least the ones intended to be read by the masses. I'd actually expect that they target somewhere in the 4th-6th grade literacy range.
Yeah, it's really sad, but it's a nail in the coffin of democracy. And prosperity. The news papers here seem to be written for 30/40 yr old, middle class women with just enough spare time to feel guilty about other people's behavior.
It’s admittedly been a long time since I looked at a local newspaper, but I do seem them occasionally. Kinda seems like the local ones are just the local news segment in text format. Fine, but I can read that on my phone or watch it on the TV with much more convenience. Maybe there’s some interesting stuff left in classified ads or whatnot, but a lot of that shit so on marketplace now.
Local is where getting the news is the hardest. My local school board meets at the same time as the local zoning board...<p>My town publishes city meeting minutes - "debated to change zoning regulations in [development], it passed 2-3". What changes were made? What were the debate points? Once I get that information who do I vote for/against in the next election if I care about the change.<p>I really want a local news paper that covers the above types of things. I can't find it and in turn I have no idea who to vote for. Town positions are partizan so I at least I know democrat/republican (for whatever that means...). I also know all candidates are married and have kids - and the family picture was taken by someone who knows how to make them look good. They all will "fight for me" as well, but never do they promise anything that might be controversial (unlike their opponent - they are obviously biased against their opponent and yet they are my best source of information about their opponent)<p>National news I will hear about and I can form opinions. However local it is much harder. The newspapers I have access to are not helping.
In Germany, there was a survey around 2009/2010, depicting that more than 60% of the audience of the major national daily newsshow do not understand the words used by the moderators<p>(it was about "Tagesschau", a major news outlet by the public broadcasting system)
Back in the mid-1990's, I took training as a literacy tutor. Our instructor noted that region's major newspapers (Detroit, USA) were written to a 6th-grade reading level. Except for the sports section, which was more like 3rd grade level.<p>I will agree that the Attention Economy has replaced most of the traditional "news" with angry click-bait.
They've been dumbed down for a reason...
fair. plausibly tested what's easy enough to do and still seems like a win. we need a separate treatment for increasing informativeness of news.
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