Arkham Horror Mythos cards

Last night I played a new-to-me board game, Arkham Horror. I had a good time, but the rules were some of the most complex for a board game I've ever played. Once we had gone around a few turns and stopped numerous times to consult the rulebook, we started to understand it and the game began to flow.

Eventually it was my turn to draw a Mythos card and share with the group how it impacted our characters and the game board. I began to read from the top of the card down when my wife stopped me. She said I was doing the tasks in the wrong order and showed me how I was supposed to interpret the card.

The card looked like this:

A Mythos card from Arkham Horror

I assumed that I would read the card top-to-bottom and perform the actions in that order: Headline, Clue, etc. However, my wife was right; the rulebook shows how you are supposed to read the card:

Selection from the Arkham Horror Rulebook explaining Mythos cards

I do not understand why the card is laid out this way. You have to read in this zig-zag pattern to play it right:

Same Mythos card but with lines showing what eye movements are necessary

For the rest of the game, every time I drew a Mythos card I wasn't 100% confident I was playing it right, just because the order of events I had to do made no sense with what the card looked like.

The cards would make more sense if they were laid out in order, like this:

A mockup of the card with the ordering of data changed, made with the Balsamiq mockup tool