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A total of 2.5 million articles from 498 different English-language online news outlets have been analysed with AI algorithms in a study of online newspapers. The study led by a team from the University of Bristol’s Intelligent Systems Laboratory used data mining, machine learning and natural language processing techniques to analyse the news content of mainstream media for a period of ten months. An article’s readability was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease Test which gives the text a score between 0 to 100; the higher the score, the “easier” it was to read. The readability scores of the articles showed that tabloid newspapers were more readable than broadsheets and they were more likely to employ sentimental language than highbrow media. In a case study of 15 leading newspapers from the the UK The Sun was found to be the easiest to read while The Guardian was scored as the least readable. The Sun has a reading age of 8 vs 14 for the The Guardian has a reading age of 14.. The Guardian has forecast a loss of £90 million this year while The Sun is established as the most popular newspaper in the country. Simple, scanable copy is simply more likely to be consumed. Breaking it into bite sized chunks, with simple, descriptive language is essential. Your prospects need to consume your message to act on it. If you think that simplicity is related to income or status factors; think again. I’ve walked into many country house and boardroom in the UK and a copy of The Sun was sitting there. Simplicity trumps complexity every time. Talk to your customers like they’re 8 and your sales will thank you for it. I won’t talk to you like you’re 8 but I’ll show you how simple growth can be: |
