Avg Reading Level vs Avg News Reading Level

So this information was brought to me by a tik tok and I later confirmed it

But essentially the average reading level for the average US Citizen is a 7th/8th grade level.

The average news article is written at a 11th grade level( changed from a 16th grade level) with Readers Digest and TvGuide being written at a 9th grade level

So the tiktoker essentially was like “so when we tell people to go google the information or go read an article, it doesn’t matter because the average US citizen can’t understand it anyway

This got me thinking

How are we to progress as a society, educate ourselves as a society and keep informed when everything is written levels above the average understanding? Is this part of the systems plan?

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-smart-is-your-news-source-1fe0c550c7d9

https://www.wyliecomm.com/2020/11/whats-the-latest-u-s-literacy-rate/