| How Lazy Reporting Plays Into Ageist Political Lies

| Paul Kleyman

| “Oh, no,” I thought with an autonomic sigh—and on Groundhog Day, no less. There in my Associated Press (AP) feed was the headline, “Out with the old? Young Democrats are trying to convince voters to send a new generation to Congress.”Once again, a major media outlet—one that’s also produced substantial in-depth reporting on generational issues—froths forth in its political coverage not over congressional dysfunction, but about old office holders being routed by youth, at last.

A trend worth identifying? Sure, if the story weren’t pocked with ageist predilections and easily verifiable falsehoods.

Journalism’s Split Personality on Aging

Almost 30 years ago I wrote about the split personality of journalism on aging: Nuanced features on health and retirement issues commonly contrast—often in the same news medium—with blunt political reporting defaulting to the misguided “bipartisan” premise that the old pose a fiscal burden by inflating the national debt. The notion of increased spending, say, to finance comprehensive long-term care, the standard in most advanced economies, seldom got a good word in. 

In this decade, starting particularly in the months before the 2022 midterm election, mainstream news and opinion columns amplified the contention that a “gerontocracy” of political leaders past age 70 were greedily holding on to power. Democratic leaders, especially, were accused of blocking the ascendance of “fresh blood,” younger rivals, who might stand a better chance of rejuvenating their party’s prospects against the GOP. 

Republicans already had their youth movement: recent electees, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and JD Vance. Younger, sure. Mature? Not so much.

The Democrats’ trepidations about a red midterm congressional sweep, though, proved unfounded, as Dem candidates outperformed predictions of the pundit class. Congress remained in GOP control, but with Botox-tight margins. What’s more, power began to transition, most strikingly with elderly House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi handing the gavel to New York’s Hakeem Jeffries, now 55. So much for the evil gerontocrats premise, right?

Yet the post-election truce on age blaming, regardless of an office holder’s experience and political acumen, was short lived, merely 12 days after the election, to be precise. Nov. 20, 2022, marked President Joe Biden’s 80th birthday. That elicited celebrations—and, soon thereafter, speculation about his fitness for surviving another term, mentally, if not physically. Speculation that Biden may be showing signs of incipient dementia was rampant, but with nary a qualified gerontology expert cited in the steady stream of articles referencing worries about his age.

Eventually, the sitting president would be reseated by his party, as if to a rocker, while that other blunderbuss of a former Commander-in-Chief would defeat the Dems’ youthful replacement nominee of age 60. With the GOP’s muscular support, Mr. Trump planted himself once again behind the Resolute Desk. 

Now, in 2026, with another midterm test only months away, the negativity worming the apple of The AP’s “Out with the Old” piece compromises even the article’s sound reporting on congressional elections around the country. 

Foggy Reporting on Fogy Leaders

Tellingly, The AP story recycles the frequent allegation faulting the incumbent president for enabling Donald Trump’s return. The article claims, “After President Joe Biden’s reluctance to step aside in 2024 at age 81 helped pave the way for Trump’s return to the White House, many see their party’s own veterans as part of the problem.” 

That this interpretation has become deemed as gospel by numerous political journalists and Democratic leaders does not excuse reporters from failing to interrogate the accusation factually. In fact, there have been multiple deep dives into substantial shortcomings of the Kamala Harris campaign. 

For example, I reported for Aging in America News last year on the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher’s dissection of the long-term erosion of Democratic support, especially in the party’s former working class and rural strongholds. 

Goldmacher stated in a NYT “Daily” podcast, “I think that a lot of people have looked at the 2024 election and said the Democratic Party lost because Joe Biden was too old, that he stayed in the race too long, that Kamala Harris was a weaker candidate, that she didn’t have enough time to prosecute the case, and on and on. But the 2024 election results were not a one-off. They weren’t a one-off at all.” 

Or the AP reporting staff might have examined the electoral autopsy of leading analysts, such as veteran Democratic Party pollster Celinda Lake. She showed that Harris lost 9 million votes, which Biden had drawn in 2020. 

In Lake’s “Charting the Way Forward” analysis, voters indicated that Harris’ initial surge of voter enthusiasm was “dampened in 2024, when the top of the ticket took a very different approach than Biden’s 2020 effort and offered little to activists with concerns about Gaza, racial and economic justice, and immigration.”

Certainly, the former president’s disastrous debate appearance was fatal to his campaign. Still, Vice President Harris’ middling retrenchment to her party’s centrism diminished Biden’s more progressive initiatives. For example, she downplayed Biden’s pledge of a wealth tax; softened his picket-line support of working-class issues; and avoided his commitment to anti-trust protections for consumers. 

The AP scribes failed to question the foggy contention that the Democratic Party’s problems result from its having so many old fogies like Joe Biden and the many seasoned citizens in Congress.

Ginsburg, McConnell and History

The unacknowledged loser in today’s American tale of political and media ageism is the pervasive assumption that even in our era of modern gains in vigorous longevity, most any sign of old age—a forgotten name, a videoed stumble continually looped on air—becomes disqualifying, for political leadership, no matter how adept and resilient the individual may be. 

The AP’s story spotlights the emergence of age-based challenges in 2026 Democratic primaries lodged by young and midlife politicians, who hope to root out congressional incumbents, from ages 70 to 81. The article spotlights congressional races in California, Mississippi, Tennessee and Connecticut. 

The section on Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen, 76, being challenged by fellow Democrat, Justin Pearson, 31, initially noted that Cohen “complimented Pearson’s potential but said age shouldn’t be the criterion for judging a lawmaker.” He adds that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the late Rep. John Lewis and others did “some of their best work after turning 70.” 

Immediately following that, the article quotes Cohen’s opponent saying that Democrats have “held their party back by hanging around too long, and naming President Biden, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as prime suspects.

While Feinstein, who died at 88, was clearly in decline, the former president’s case promises bookshelves of political-science and historical disputations to come. Then the AP writers gratuitously summarized candidate Pearson’s contention about Justice Ginsburg: “The aging justice didn’t resign while Barack Obama was president and died at age 87 during Trump’s first term, allowing the Republican to replace her with a conservative.” History begs to differ. 

Belying this misguided second-guessing of Justice Ginsburg’s motivations for remaining on the bench so long were the actions of another elder of the Washington establishment, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY.

As the Senate’s Majority Leader in 2016, McConnell contorted historical practice by declaring President Barack Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland was a “lame duck” nomination that was ineligible to stand for the Senate’s “advice and consent.” He simply refused to schedule a hearing and up-or-down vote for Garland.

Although the time restraint for Senate confirmation was intended to prevent an exiting president from filling a seat on the court in the short stretch between an election and inauguration day, Obama still had 10 months to go following his selection of Garland. So, by early 2020, the “Notorious RBG,” as fans of the sharp-minded, iron-pumping octogenarian humorously tagged her, knew that McConnell had obviated any action she might have taken. 

Furthermore, after Ginsburg died on Sept. 18, 2020, only weeks before the presidential election, the legislative mastermind proved he’d do anything to wrest GOP control of the court. He violated his own “lame duck” policy by rushing through the confirmation of President Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, before Joe Biden could take the oath of office. 

The AP’s repeating such a dubious and easily controverted supposition—and then inferring selfish motives for Justice Ginsburg’s remaining on the bench too long—amounts both to journalistic amateurism and a shameful smear on her distinguished memory. 

Yet another of The AP team’s editorial lapses was in listing five Democratic members of Congress in their 80s, who chose not to run for reelection this year. The article erroneously states, “All had served for decades and decided to retire rather than face primary challengers.” 

In fact, the one named, whom I’ve both voted for and for her primary opponents over the years, is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 85. Any San Francisco political observer could have told the AP team that not only had Pelosi long expressed a wish to pass the torch, but other factors, such as the debilitating hammer attack on her husband and Pelosi’s hip replacement last year, were more compelling reasons than yet another primary contest, for her to retire now. 

For her, The AP’s assertion is plainly foolish. What’s more, as The Hill reported, with 51 departures this year, “Congressional retirements are on track to hit their highest level in a decade this election cycle, fueled in part by Republicans increasingly looking to exit the halls of Congress.” 

A Learning Opportunity?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that The AP reporting team’s assumption of age-negative stereotypes was intentional. With team reporting, such as this, far-flung news gatherers may lack the background to discern subtle biases that reflect an entrenched cultural prejudice. 

A lead writer charged with drafting a story from others’ dispatches may be an experienced news reporter who nonetheless lacks a deeper understanding of convoluted policy debates simmering beneath a complex topic, such as aging. An editor may simply default to doesn’t-everyone-know-this memes without even consulting a news organization’s specialists about relevant subjects. 

Cross-checking a story with a more knowledgeable colleague is a common news-reporting practice on stories involving race or gender, but at The AP, evidently not on age. One AP reporter I contacted, who is experienced in generational coverage, had not been aware of this “Out with the Old” article before receiving my email, and asked not to be identified, but agreed with me that the article may be “a learning opportunity” for the news service.

I have to wonder how many political analysts will scrutinize the dogged ageism in media coverage of recent elections. The pervasiveness of negative age references in media about Biden and other incumbent candidates would be a compelling research project for a graduate class in journalism, perhaps for a semester before another Groundhog Day.

Paul Kleyman is National Coordinator of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), which he co-founded in 1993. He edits its e-newsletter, GBONews.org.