Why do these always/only talk about new graduates? My last contract ended, and I haven’t had a real interview in over a year.

Because their unemployment rates specifically are catastrophic levels. I’ve seen reports as high as 19%. Fortunately, other demographics simply aren’t experiencing difficulties at this level.

As an aside, I personally noticed the market pick up hard in the last few weeks. I work in a niche industry, but get ads for software dev jobs regularly and they’ve really surged lately. The past year truly was a difficult time to find a job.

The fact that pretty much all new grads are having a more difficult time finding employment than in the past makes it harder to dismiss. If you write a story about 10% of experienced workers being un/underemployed, it's easy for readers to say "oh, that's just structural unemployment" or "they must not be that good at their job," even if someone paying attention to the numbers would know that it used to be 5% (or whatever).

Because it's an easy to story they can run every summer - 'how are graduates doing in the job market? we asked 5 of them'.