“newspaper articles seemed to be directed at a third grade knowledge base”
Because that’s the only level that the journalism majors can understand.
It really is depressing how many “professional writers” cannot write at all. The newspapers seem to have fired all the editors years ago and now they hire journalists based on certain criteria which (apparently) does not include a writing sample.
Just imagine hiring a musician who played music at a similar level. Wouldn’t last a day.
The public readers, who are majority liberal likely. They ride around with bumper stickers that say, don’t judge me by my mind, because im a democrat