For nearly 15 years, Paula Span has devoted much of her journalistic career to covering one topic: aging and the challenges that come with it.
Ms. Spahn writes The New Old Age, a twice-monthly column for the Health section of The New York Times on issues affecting older Americans. Among the topics he has recently explored are the cost of adulthood, the rise of robotic pets as companions, and the dangers of misinformation on social media.
Ms. Spahn took over the column in 2009, when it was just a blog. Before the Times, she wrote for the Washington Post’s bureau and Style magazine, where in 2002, she reported on an article about residents at an assisted-living facility in Bethesda, Md.
“At the time, people didn’t know much about assisted living,” Ms. Spahn said. “I became interested in spending time with older people and writing about these issues.” Four years later, she began writing her first book, When the Time Comes, about the struggles of families with aging parents.
In a telephone interview from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Spahn, 74, discussed how her column’s audience has changed over the years and why she reads every reader comment on her articles. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What makes for a good column for you?
Something that is a national trend or development that is rooted in reality, science and research and affects people. There’s no shortage of such issues when you’re talking about a group as large as older Americans. There are approximately 60 million people over the age of 65 in the United States. It is a very heterogeneous group. There are many things that this group is concerned about, such as living arrangements. Medicare and other insurance and policy issues. health; connections at the end of their life cycle. It is a large canvas, which makes it enjoyable and constantly interesting. When I took over the column, I thought I’d run out of material in a few years. Of course, 15 years later, there is still so much to talk about.
Where do you find ideas?
I have a press subscription to several medical journals, so I’m constantly looking at what researchers are discovering about aging and health and overdiagnosis and overtreatment. A number of advocacy groups interested in Medicare, housing, nutrition and other issues contact me. Anyone who talks about aging within 20 feet of me, I’m over it. My readers also write in the comments section.
Who do you consider your audience for this column?
This has changed a bit over time. When The New Old Age was originally conceived as a column on aging and caregiving, we thought the audience was adult children who cared for and helped make decisions for their parents and older relatives. Over time, we realized that many of our readers were seniors themselves. We wrote about them as if they weren’t there. It probably helped that I grew old with the column, so I became an older adult.
So now we see our audience as family members and grown children, but also older Americans themselves and all those with an interest in the issue, including gerontologists, Meals on Wheels executives, long-term care facility operators, attorneys and advocates elderly people. Such a large group attracts a lot of attention from many sources.
Yours article on home ownership No longer being a blessing to older Americans stood out to me. What inspired it?
I think it came from the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, which was looking at this issue. When I read more about it, it appeared that many organizations and research groups had looked into this issue due to first lower then rising interest rates, rising rents and housing prices. Most of us grew up believing that home ownership was your ATM that funds and secures your retirement. For some people, this may no longer be the case. I think journalists are interested in looking deeper into things that we all thought were true and maybe turned out not to be. This story was one of them.
I noticed that you like to interact with readers who comment on your articles.
I try to gauge how people feel about an issue. Sometimes I get ideas from what readers share about their own experiences. We talk a lot about the disadvantages of how we all live on the Internet, but this is an advantage. Early in my career, if a reader wanted to get in touch with me, they had to either try to get my phone number and call me or write me a physical letter. Being able to see what people are thinking and feeling is really helpful.
What is the biggest challenge of your job?
Finding older people who are willing to share their stories with me about things that are sometimes very personal — health care, family relationships, finances. I think it’s easier to delve into some of these complex subjects when there’s a human story to tell. People were very generous with their time. But we require that they use their real names, locations and ages. We love taking their pictures when we can, and sometimes that can be difficult.
Do you have a favorite column from your 15 years of coverage?
An example where I was able to really see the impact of something I wrote, and that was covered by other media outlets, was when the Department of Justice went after the operator of a luxury continuing care retirement community in Virginia for discrimination. it prohibited people living in assisted living and the nursing home sections of the facility, limiting the fancy beachside dining to the independent residents. The residents were outraged. They were paying a lot of money for that place.
