Critical Reasoning:The editor of a local newspaper

[suyash.tiwari]

The editor of a local newspaper found that his paper's readership was declining because most articles did not address issues that directly impact readers' lives. To increase readership, the editor decided to print more articles about issues facing the local public school system and contentious school board budget meetings.

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest reason to expect that articles focusing on local public schools and the school board budget will succeed in attracting readers?

One of the core missions of the local newspaper is to inform local residents about the school board and the public school system.
In order to make informed voting decisions, local residents need to be informed about the school board budget and its impact on the public school system.
School board meetings are open to the public and make the minutes of every budget meeting readily available to the public.
The number of local residents who read newspapers today is smaller than it was ten years ago.
The vast majority of the local paper's readership is either employed by the local public school system or has children who attend local public schools.

OA:E.

My issue: The readership is not what is in question. The newspaper has to INCREASE its readership. Hence to strengthen the argument, something should be told about people interest in general, so that it shows that more people would like to read the newspaper. The readership is interested in certain topics that the newspaper is planning to publish would not INCREASE the READERSHIP that is already reading the newspaper. How can it ?

Any help pls...

[tim]

you make some valid points about the specific wording. i suspect something must have been copied incorrectly from the GMAT Prep software, because this sort of wording ambiguity is uncharacteristic of the GMAT. can you please post a screen shot of the question so we can verify the exact wording?