Accessibility in The New York Times: Does it Work?

By K.C. Cayo (they/them)

The New York Times, generally, has made a good practice of accessibility in their reading levels—their texts require a lower reading level, which means they have a higher reading ease. The typical New York Times article has about a tenth grade reading level and a Flesch Reading Ease of 60 to 70, so you do not need to be the most knowledgeable or the most qualified to understand any of their texts. One article, however, encompasses the best parts of Plain Style, though the overall tone used in the piece makes it fall short in other categories.

In mid-March, 2022, Luke Broadwater and Amelia Nierenberg wrote an article about the U.S. Senate meeting, groggy and obviously irritated, the morning after Daylight Savings time ended, and unanimously voted to make Daylight Savings permanent after very little discussion. The composition was humorous and light-hearted as it emphasized the exhaustion of senators after losing an hour of sleep, the surprising energy and unification they experienced across party lines at the possibility of getting rid of this “frustrating clock-changing", and the few comments that were covered in the bare-bones conversation. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, introduced the Sunshine Protection Act with almost no warning or debate.

Plain style is a writing approach that emphasizes the readers’ needs. It is concise and reader-friendly, often written for a wider audience. Daylight Savings, an issue that affects almost every person, is a good topic to address in plain style. This ensures that almost any reader could engage with the article and understand what the conversation is, what the bill addresses, and what final steps moving forward could look like. The authors ensured that this text would be accessible for a wide audience (ironic, seeing as The New York Times is [inaccessibly] hidden being a paywall) so they could inform the public about policies that the Senate is enacting. The style fits well with what a news article should look like, though perhaps it is at an even higher reading ease level than others of its kind. Though it uses some words that may require the occasional reader to break out their thesaurus, for the most part the sentences are simple, short, and intentional. The majority of the sentences are in active voice, emphasizing the action and the agent of said action, which in this scenario was likely done to not only humanize the Senators, but to create a humorous tone. The authors know that this topic, along with the speed in which it was brought to the Senate floor and passed, is funny, and that many readers will read about it with amused surprise. It is rare that politicians are willing to “cross the aisle” and agree with their counterparts of other parties, yet they came together so determinedly because they were cranky about losing an hour of sleep. In these ways, the plain style worked well for this type of writing.

On the other hand, plain style could also cause some problems when it is used in this way. This article reads like a comedy. It is laughable, it is enjoyable, and we, as readers, resonate will the bone-deep weariness and subsequent joy at the possibility of making Daylight Savings permanent. However, what this article gains in accessibility, it loses in credibility; the combination of the topic and the writing style do it a disservice in this situation. It hardly reads like a New York Times article. One way that this piece could have added credibility was by highlighting the historical precedent of Daylight Savings, the discourse that surrounds changing it in the first place, or even what the next steps look like in this conversation. Scientists and politicians have been advocating for a single time system for some time, though they do not agree about which version is the best one. There is also an extensive history to why Daylight Savings exists in the first place, from the passion project of Benjamin Franklin in the 1800s to the number of trains that would arrive late to the station due to the different “sun times” that different states followed in the 1840s. However, none of this history is addressed in any meaningful way in the article. Though this writing evokes excitement and amusement, it misses the mark in integrity.

There are pros and cons to every style of writing, and plain style is not unique in that sense. The New York Times, for all that it tends to aim toward official styles, or a mix of official and plain, leaned into the latter in this situation. This was an easy, comprehensible read geared toward a larger audience, which made sense for this piece considering how widely Daylight Savings affects a diverse range of people. However, for a political article, it was surprisingly comedic, whether that was intentional or not, and that hurt the ethos of the writing. Overall, this piece accomplished what it needed to: it informed the public of what the Senate is talking about in a simple, approachable way. Regardless of how they meant to accomplish that, they were successful.