By Vicki Milliken
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a 60-year-old female can expect to live, on average, another 21 years in full health. A 60-year-old male, 19 years. That’s a lot of years – a lot of good years. Kamala Harris is 60. She’s energetic, resilient and has just interviewed for arguably the biggest job in the world, the President of the United States. So why does the media perpetuate the view that those over 60 are in a state of decline? And, more importantly, why should we care?
Many of the Australian journalists, editors and producers interviewed for the latest report by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Shaping Perceptions: How Australian Media Reports on Ageing, accepted ‘that media coverage does generally portray older people negatively …’
The report’s analysis of media content across key outlets found a number of recurring themes. Ageing was linked to pain, frailty and vulnerability and seen as something to be solved, fought or cured. This was especially true for older women, whose ageing was framed as a critical aesthetic concern. Older people were deemed at best a socio-economic burden, at worst a threat to the wellbeing of society in general. It’s a theme often used in stories framing younger working Australians as burdened with the spending, care and housing choices of older Australians.
Reasons for this poor portrayal, according to the report, include: reduced staff numbers and the loss of senior or specialist journalists with expertise in covering age-related stories; overworked newsrooms and increasingly tighter deadlines; inadequate research and a lack of ready access to expert spokespeople on ageing. Business drivers too played a part. Apparently, according to the report, portraying older people poorly improves audience traffic and subscriptions, especially with younger audiences.
It belies logic and common sense that a group, 60 and over, that represents nearly 23 per cent of Australia’s population, are homogeneous. The fact is that the longer we live, the more different we become. And those differences extend to such things as appearance, health, physicality, employment, financials, living arrangements and even outlooks on ageing.
Even in my small network of over 60s there are those rocking grey hair and those rocking colour; those who can cycle to Geelong and back and those who can’t walk more than one kilometre; those still working 50 hours a week and those retired. Yet, that variability does not exist in the media.
And that’s a problem, because, as the AHRC report states, ‘how we view the world and those around us is largely shaped by what we read, what we hear and what we watch.’ Further, ‘the media informs how we see and treat others, and even how we see and treat ourselves.’
Enough is enough.
Our media, of which I’m a part, must do better. Perpetuating negative ageing stereotypes is shorthand for a lazy and careless attitude to the truth.
Vicki Milliken is a locally based freelance writer and aspiring ninja ager.
Editor’s note
For a refreshing perspective on ageing have a listen to the Suddenly Senior podcast, produced by Yours Truly.
