Do you read me?

As the authors of public affairs materials — fact sheets, news releases, policy papers and more — we are given the assignment of being comprehensive while being clear and concise. Simple is hard.

Professional writers often get caught walking the “readability” tightrope, balancing between being “too complicated” and accused of “dumbing it down.” Keeping the audience in mind always is the best gauge. That always will help in deciding the level of detail and complexity you may get away with in any document.

Of course, there is the Flesch-Kinkaid two-tier scale of readability developed by the military in the 1970s. The Reading Ease score indicates how easy a text is to read. A high score implies an easy text. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade level indicates the grade a person will have to have reached to understand the text. 

The scoring goes something like this: 

•  90.0–100.0: Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student;

•  60.0–70.0; Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students; and 

•  0.0–30.0: Best understood by university graduates.

The average reading level of Americans is between eighth and ninth grade. 

Somewhere I heard we should be writing for the level of a sixth grader if we want to be understood. That’s 90 points or higher. For good or bad, that doesn’t seem to be happening in the public affairs world, or even journalism.

Here’s my quick, random readability survey of local writers. Using Flesch-Kinkaid, John Canzano of The Oregonian was the most readable:

 • Mayor Sam Adams: An e-letter sent last week about the Education Urban Renewal Area was ranked at Grade level of 14 with a Reading Ease score of 33. 

•  The Oregonian’s lead story May 21 about condors was ranked at Grade level 11 with a Reading Ease score of 46.

•  KGW website’s top story about a murder at a Hillsboro home was ranked at Grade level 10 with a Reading Ease score of 46. 

•  John Canzano, The Oregonian’s sports columnist writing about Twitter hate mail directed at Steve Blake for missing a three-pointer at the buzzer was ranked Grade level 10 with 
a Reading Ease score of 52.

• This Managing Issues blog last week on strike communications was ranked at Grade level 11 with a Reading Ease score of 42.

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Trust in Media Dips But Other Institutions Lag Behind

Johnny Carson first gained notoriety in 1957 when he hosted a game show called “Who Do You Trust?” If some of our important public institutions were contestants on that show today, chances are they’d be judged as losers.

To put it bluntly, the public is grumpy. Americans are growing more distrustful of our public institutions. In fact, attitudes about the news media are at an all-time low in most categories measure during the past 25 years by the Pew Research Center.

And the media fares better than our other important organizations such a state and federal governments, business and Congress.

A Pew survey released in September concluded the press is seen as:

• Lacking in fairness (77 percent);
• Unwilling to admit mistakes (72 percent):
• Perpetrating inaccurate reporting (66 percent); as well as
• Engaging in political bias (63 percent).

The Pew Research Center’s first surveyed the public on news attitudes in 1985, Back then, a majority of respondents said that news organizations were often influenced by powerful people and organizations (53 percent) and tended to favor one side (53 percent).

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Reputation is a Journey, Not a Pit Stop

Johnson & Johnson may have to use some of its Band-aids to fix its bruised reputation concerning recent faulty product recalls.Johnson & Johnson, the company held on a pedestal for its unequivocal, bold response to tainted Tylenol in the 1980s, is being hauled back in front of Congress to defend its current record on faulty product recalls. It serves as a reminder that maintaining your reputation is a journey, not a pit stop.

The company in recent months has engaged in a phantom recall of Motrin and recalled over-the-counter drugs such as liquid Tylenol, millions of contact lenses and tens of thousands of artificial hips, all made by separate units of Johnson & Johnson.

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