DESCRIPTORS Audience Awareness; Content Analysis; Correlation; Higher Education; *Newspapers; *News Writing; *Readability; Readability Formulas; Reading

A study analyzed the readability of seven central Florida newspapers (one of which is a college newspaper) and "USA Today. " "Rightwriter, " a grammar checker and readability computer program, was used to evaluate front page articles for each of the eight newspapers. The readability formulas invoked in the readability program included the Flesch-Kincaid, Flesch, and FOG indexes. Resultsindicated that the average readability levels of the individual newspapers ranged from 9.37 to 14.68 using the Flesch-Kincaid, 10.28 to 15.78 using FOG. A rank order correlation of the three possiblepairs of the tests was statistically significant for all pairs. Findings suggest that each of the papers (except the college paper) should consider encouraging its reporters and editors to write articles that are more easily understood by their target population.(Four figures of data are included; 20 references, a glossary of terms, a description of each front page and the text of the articles, a sample hardcopy of the "Rightwriter " program, and an appendix of data are attached.) (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document