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Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

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Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#21

Post by Georgelemental »

phtrivier wrote: post #14
SoftTalker wrote: post #3

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 ? Eg: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/08/pisa-202...

In terms of the actual ideas being promulgated, Le Monde is approximately CP-level.

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#22

Post by newspaper1 »

altcognito wrote: post #13
delichon wrote: post #7

"A Nationwide Experiment in Mainstream Media Indoctrination in French High Schools" Fixed it for you.

You would think that any sort of reading was immediate indoctrination with comments like these.

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".

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#23

Post by dfxm12 »

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...

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#24

Post by wsloth514 »

'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.

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#25

Post by xboxnolifes »

SoftTalker wrote: post #3

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 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.

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#26

Post by Saline9515 »

phtrivier wrote: post #14
SoftTalker wrote: post #3

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 ? Eg: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/08/pisa-202...

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.

English version: https://mondediplo.com/

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#27

Post by bluGill »

berytos_storm wrote: post #10
SoftTalker wrote: post #3

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").

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...

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.

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#28

Post by bell-cot »

SoftTalker wrote: post #3

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").

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.

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#29

Post by TheMatten »

jll29 wrote: post #18

In Europe, The Economist and The Guardian are about the only serious in-depth sources left, at least for those that can read English.

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.

Re: Making Teenagers Read Newspapers. A Nationwide Experiment in French High Schools

#30

Post by bluGill »

wsloth514 wrote: post #24

'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.

news papers have always been 80% ads. However they used to have a lot more content (and a lot more ads)
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