Estimating Readability: A Study of Utah Editors' Abilities
William C. Porter, F. G. Stephens · Newspaper Research Journal · 1989
The study tests how accurately newspaper editors could estimate readability. When given writing samples, managing editors from five of Utah's six dailies rated the stories as 4.2 grade levels easier to read than the measured Flesch readability scores. The results may raise questions about editors' understanding of how audiences perceive content.