How Hard Is the News in English? We Graded 131 Stories From 6 Major Outlets

English learners are often told to “just read the news.” So we measured how hard that actually is. We took 131 current stories from 6 major English-language outlets and ran each one through a CEFR readability check. The result is stark: 93.9% of the news is written at B2 level or harder — and not a single story was beginner (A1–A2) level.

The reading level of the news, by CEFR band

Share of the 131 stories that fell into each CEFR level:

There is nothing at the bottom. The news simply is not written for beginners — it is written for fluent adult native speakers, and the readability scores show it.

Which outlets are hardest?

Average reading level (Flesch–Kincaid US grade) per outlet — higher means harder:

The Guardian was the most demanding (around grade 15 — university level), while the BBC and Sky News were the most approachable. But even the “easiest” outlet averaged grade 9–10, comfortably in B2 territory.

Why this matters for learners

Most English learners are at B1 or B2. If almost all of the news sits at B2–C2, then “read the news” quietly means “read something a level or two above you” — which is why so many learners bounce off real articles, look up every other word, and give up.

The fix is not to avoid the news. It is to read it at your level. That means simplified (“levelled”) versions that keep the real story but rewrite it in clearer English, and checking a text’s level before you commit to it.

Method

We collected 131 stories (headline + summary) from the public RSS feeds of 6 major English-language outlets on 6 June 2026, and scored each with the same engine that powers the Newslish text level checker: Flesch–Kincaid grade level combined with a high-frequency vocabulary check, mapped to CEFR bands. It is an estimate, not an official rating, and the script is reproducible. Headlines are short, so this is a conservative reading of the news — full articles are typically harder still.