Poorly phrased. It did happen long ago, but they're also so far away that the light that was emitted back then is just reaching us now. Astronomical distances are so vast that looking at things that are further away also means seeing them as they were further back in time. JWST increased our capabilities of looking further, and therefore lets us see objects that are further in the past than ever before. What the astronomer meant was that the photons we are capturing come from galaxies so long ago that we can observe them in the process of being formed.
i'm guessing "old" from our current temporal vantage point. they are far away so the picture we see of them is "old" because it took a long time for the polaroid of them to reach earth via snail mail. like you took a picture postcard of your kitten and mailed it but it got lost then later it gets delivered. the photo is old but the kitten in the photo is young.
This makes no sense to me. Older galaxies should be formed long time ago, no?