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".
The audience for the written paper is not less-than-high-school educated. Do you think the wording is at this level ?
Classe Préparatoire. When you quit kindergarden and enter ‘real school’. Age 6
I guess it is meant as hyperbole, though I read NRC, Le Monde and NYT and can confirm that le Monde is the leading newspaper of France but it is not the newspaper it was. Mostly opinion and lifestyle, not a lot of investigative or even just in-depth journalism. Mostly preaching (some of it for causes I happen to agree with, but still)
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.
> I would estimate that many are now written to target a less-than-high-school literacy level.
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.
I used to feel that way, but I've come back around to finding it easier to read the news in the actual paper. For once, I'm not going to get distracted by a text or email notification. But more importantly, there's no cookie notification to dismiss, there's no autoplay video ad that somehow got around my pihole and ublock origin, there's no subscription nag flyout, and I don't have to log in every time despite clicking on "Remember me."
Plus, there's the visual cue to those around me that I'm not just idly scrolling, I'm actually looking at something.
Local is where getting the news is the hardest. My local school board meets at the same time as the local zoning board...
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.
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)
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
(it was about "Tagesschau", a major news outlet by the public broadcasting system)
> more than 60% of the audience of the major national daily newsshow do not understand the words used by the moderators
OK, so I don't want to deny a modern problem may exist based on other signs, however I don't think that statistic is necessarily a bad thing: News ought to be exposing viewers to vocabulary they don't know.
Not just as a way to help people grow their vocabulary by seeing it used, but also because news content should naturally touch on topics and specialties that are outside their usual work and leisure.
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.
I will agree that the Attention Economy has replaced most of the traditional "news" with angry click-bait.
I used to read the Grauniad, but I've become distrustful of it over the past few years because of how aggressively it panders to my sensibilities and biases. Also, it doesn't pursue any story more than any other broadsheet would; it's just a matter of what stories it chooses to pursue.
That feels a little bit reductive, at least given that non-English news is precisely what big part of population is going to consume. There isn't even an unified market for news content given the language boundaries.
Not to say there aren't many shallow, clickbait sources, but there're good ones as well.
The better educated somebody is, the more likely they are to have reasonably fluency in English. There are some great non-English sources out there, but English is the most read language by well educated people.
Not saying there are not great news content in other languages. However English should be expected to dominate over the whole world.
This is a bizarre take. Newspapers, even really good ones, generally don't target international readers. They target their home country's readers. How many Englishmen are interested in the machinations of unions in Paris? How many Frenchmen?
Obviously the best coverage will be in the country's majority language.
'Local newspapers' in my area are majority advertisement for local businesses or coupons. Like the content of reading a newspaper could be condensed to maybe 2 pages, if that. The first page is like what volunteers or schools are doing. While another half a page contains maybe a township schedule or something similar. I don't think there is much content to 'read' that would change much to be honest.
At work I have access to all newspapers big and small, I use to read all of them but I haven't touched one in a decade. Not one article that isn't infantile nonsense or outright propaganda of a quality that falls appart in the first sentence.
The fact you can't find a quality newspaper to read says more about you than the state of journalism.
The Guardian, AP, Reuters, NPR, etc. Hell, the New York Review of Books is crazy good, although their world news coverage usually is slipped into book reviews.
I used to get the newspaper everyday before highschool. I mostly got it for sports, comics and puzzles, but many days I ended up reading it cover to cover. Unfortunately, that paper folded while I was in college. Hopefully, this is a good program for highschoolers and newspapers both...
How about making teenagers seek out independent media? We've seen the results of people being raised reading MSM newspapers and it's not pretty. Propaganda packaged as "serious news", is some of the most dangerous media that exists.
There's a more subtle form of 'make' where you set conditions to induce a result. The fact is, giving anything away for free will increase its consumption.
Reading MSM newspapers is definitely indoctrination. With Europeans getting more and more hawkish on Russia (and other things), this seems like a great way to get everyone thinking "right".
The audience for the written paper is not less-than-high-school educated. Do you think the wording is at this level ?
Eg: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/08/pisa-202...
I guess it is meant as hyperbole, though I read NRC, Le Monde and NYT and can confirm that le Monde is the leading newspaper of France but it is not the newspaper it was. Mostly opinion and lifestyle, not a lot of investigative or even just in-depth journalism. Mostly preaching (some of it for causes I happen to agree with, but still)
English version: https://mondediplo.com/
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.
Plus, there's the visual cue to those around me that I'm not just idly scrolling, I'm actually looking at something.
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.
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)
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.
(it was about "Tagesschau", a major news outlet by the public broadcasting system)
OK, so I don't want to deny a modern problem may exist based on other signs, however I don't think that statistic is necessarily a bad thing: News ought to be exposing viewers to vocabulary they don't know.
Not just as a way to help people grow their vocabulary by seeing it used, but also because news content should naturally touch on topics and specialties that are outside their usual work and leisure.
I will agree that the Attention Economy has replaced most of the traditional "news" with angry click-bait.
Not saying there are not great news content in other languages. However English should be expected to dominate over the whole world.
Obviously the best coverage will be in the country's majority language.
The Guardian, AP, Reuters, NPR, etc. Hell, the New York Review of Books is crazy good, although their world news coverage usually is slipped into book reviews.
Fixed it for you.