âThe press seems relentlessly focused on the status of the elderly,â Lucy Schiller wrote for CJR last year. She was referring to Joe Biden, the oldest president the United States has ever had; Donald Trump, his predecessor and rival; and the record-breaking age of the Senate. This was before the CNN debate, before ABCâs George Stephanopoulos interview, before Stephanopoulos said, to a passerby, âI donât think he can serve four more years.â Before political journalism turned its full attention to gerontology.Â
To examine journalismâs obsession with age, and aging news-obsessives, Schiller visited Schenley Gardens, a personal care facility in Pittsburghâhome to the oldest areas of the countryâwhere residents receive help with âactivities of daily livingâ (dressing, eating, bathing) and ceaselessly follow politics. Everyone has an in-room television; many subscribe to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and check in with coverage on their iPads, computers, cellphones. Sometimes, they gather to watch reports on a television in their common area. Pew Research has found that 85 percent of people over sixty-five often tune in to the news on TV. âTheir consumption of the news is viewed as an unchanging fact, even as who is âoldâ changes with time,â Schiller wrote. âThat is, to become old is to become a news watcher.â
âMore than the rest of us,â she found, âSchenleyans discuss the news with one another, in close quarters, every day.â But when asked about how journalists cover the subject of agingâor even candidatesâ policies surrounding old ageâresidents expressed far less interest than in LGBTQ rights, immigration, and how the news has changed in their lifetimes. âRather than empty nostalgia, to care about what youâve always cared aboutâpolitical concerns of all stripes, not just the concerns of âsenior citizensââmakes basic sense,â Schiller observed. âCoursing inside Schenley Gardens were opinions and beliefs that reflected the complex selfhood of the residents, and eluded whatever filter age might suggest.â
The dialogue over very old politicians comes with a question: When is it time to quit? In her piece, Schiller raised the idea of âdisengagement theory,â through which gerontologists have suggested that ânot only are we naturally and inherently inclined to isolate ourselves as we age, but that society, eventually, is done with us.â A troubling thought. Still, she wrote, âthere is a difference between calling for the retirement of oldest-old politiciansâwhose net worth usually far surpasses that of their average constituent, and who play a central role in determining the realities of all Americansâand calling for the mass retirement of older people from society, on the basis that shelving them is somehow natural.â The residents of Schenley Gardens, at least, are profoundly, persistently engaged with current events. You can read Schillerâs full piece here.
Betsy Morais is the managing editor of CJR.