GBO NEWS: Let Donald Be Donald—Accountable, Not Just Too Old
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations
November 14, 2016 — Volume 16, Number 17
Editor’s Note: GBO News, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generation publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. You can subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge simply by sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. You’ll receive the table of contents as e-mail, just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org.
In This Issue: The Orange House? Really?
1. LET DONALD BE DONALD—ACCOUNTABLE, NOT JUST TOO OLD
2. GEN BEATLES NEWS: ***Gen Beat Meet-Up in New Orleans This Week; ***Retirement Writer Wasik’s new book Lightning Strikes, bio of Genius Tesla
3. THE STORYBOARD: *** KQED Public Radio’s Seven-Part Series on Affordable Mental Health Care Wind SPJ NorCal Honors; *** “Don’t Touch My Medicare!” by Trudy Lieberman, Harper’s Magazine (November); *** “Behind Closed Doors: A Closer Look At In-Home Senior Care,” by Jennifer Margulis, Jefferson Journal, Jefferson Public Radio (Ashland Ore., Nov 1).
4. EYES ON THE PRIZE: ***USC Annenberg Deadline for California Reporters: December 1; ***Seven Media Leaders Among PBS Next Avenue’s 50 Top “Influencers in Aging”: Ashton Applewhite, Leslie Stahl, Norman Lear & More.
1. LET DONALD BE DONALD—ACCOUNTABLE, NOT JUST TOO OLD
It started well before last week’s stunning election. Politico’s Michael Tortorello asked in a Feb. 28 posting, “Is Donald Trump Too Old to Be President?” As his birthday loomed on June, USA Today’s Bill Sternberg posted, “Trump at 70, Just the Way He Is.” And as recently as Sept. 13, FiveThirtyEight’s Clare Malone and Christie Aschwanden posted, “Can A Candidate Be Too Old To Run For President?”
The potential for stereotyping presidential candidates for their age, race, gender, religion or geographic moorings is always a media concern, and the president-elect has certainly run the table on the list of possible biases. But what about commentary on The Donald himself? Almost immediately following Tuesday’s results, Donald J. Trump’s ability to comport himself presidentially was questioned on multiple media outlets because he turned 70 this year.
Questioning any candidate’s health and stamina is not only fair game, of course, it’s a necessary inquiry. The Politico piece noted, “The oldsters in the presidential race might be exceptions to the rule, but science says brain function often declines noticeably at that age.” The story went on partly to source at least some of the current attention to the issue to partisan commentators, such as Breitbart.com (prior to Steve Bannon’s officially joining the Trump campaign) and Karl Rove. Both, writes Tororello, “insinuated that [Hillary] Clinton suffers cognitive impairments due to a fall she took in December 2012.”
Tortorello immediately dismissed those claims due to “the notable absence of an MD” on the end of Breitbart and Rove’s claimed sources. Although he cited important research on age-related decline of “executive function,” among those he interviewed was the distinguished University of California, San Diego, neuroscientist Dilip Jeste, PhD. He stressed, “If you are looking at the MRI of a person, you may not be able to tell her age. There are 40-year-old people whose brain is like an 80-year-old,” and visa versa.
The Politico writer commented drily, “Science has yet to study the brains of politicians as a species.” Perhaps a yet-unknown psychologists was studying this year’s primary sample, including Trump, 70, Clinton, 69, and Bernie Sanders, 75.
In any case, it’s likely that the issue of age remained subcutaneous throughout much of the excruciatingly long presidential campaign because any of them would have become the oldest president on taking office in history. Trump, instead, grabbed at other personal attributes of his opponents, some of them small and others “YUGE.”
Garry Trudeau’s YUGE! Has It Right
I mention YUGE! because that’s the title of Garry Trudeau’s new book, which chronicles the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist’s inclusion of Trump in his “Doonesbury” strip for almost 30 years.
He recently explained to NPR’s Terry Gross that since 1987 he’s been following the steady pattern of The Donald’s bombastic behavior. That three-decade stretch is significant in light of a pattern now emanating from some of the national media — ranging from post-election remarks by Chris Matthews to anti-Trump conservative talk-radio host Charlie Sykes on NPR “Morning Edition” (Nov. 11).
With little variation, they and several others have commented, “He’s 70-years-old—and he’s not going to change.”
GBO’s editor, at 71, may be a bit sensitive to these suggestions that old pols (or journalists) can’t learn new tricks. Without question, broaching a candidate’s health and stamina is legitimate, but keep in mind John F. Kennedy’s Addison’s disease, which remained hidden while he ran to become the youngest president on record in 1960, and
Paul Tsongas’ cancer, the recurrence of which he failed to reveal during his second presidential bid. Tsongas died in 1997, at age 55, not long after dropping out of the race.
So, what’s age got to do with it?
Invoking concern over an older candidate’s age is hardly new, of course. Ronald Reagan, who took office in 1981, shortly before his 70th birthday, is remembered for wittily deflating speculation about his advanced years. During his 1984 debate poke at Walter Mondale, Reagan elicited cheers and laughter with his well-timed quip that he wouldn’t hold the Democrat’s “youth and inexperience against him.”
At the moment, though, I can’t recall a president-elect’s age coming up repeatedly as a kind of fixative brushed over his questionable behavior. As Garry Trudeau comically documents, Trump hasn’t changed his belligerent opportunism throughout most of his adult life. Evidently, his bluster and bullying go back to his youth.
No Country for Old Stereotypes
But now that the 45th president-elect’s volatile behavior–and mindset—have gained the awesome power of the American presidency, how is it that the burgeoning public response is to question whether his age might prevent him from altering his troubling demeanor? The refrain quickly seems to be that he’s beyond his capacity to change because he’s too old.
No. If he’s beyond that it’s because — he’s DONALD TRUMP.
This emerging narrative is wrong, and it’s patently ageist. However, I also want to see how far it continues. Will that lazy line of politi-speak reinforce a phony stereotype that will essentially let the man off the behavioral hook? History will not judge the new president merely as some dottering Uncle Donald to be tolerated for boorish insults one at the family Thanksgiving table. President Trump certainly will continue to be caricatured, but his pending tenure should allow his supporters or detractors any excuses for him.
Reporters will have much else to worry about from the new president starting Jan. 20, 2017. But also those concerned with stereotyping and stigmatization should be keeping their eyes and ears open for simplistic mischaracterizations of this man. Like anyone in power, he needs to be held accountable for his actions, not dismissed out frustration for his age. The latter course is not much different from, although it’s more subtle than, the right-wing efforts to stigmatize President Obama because he is African American, or simply African in the narrative agitated by Trump. (The birther issue wasn’t just about his suggested Muslim background, but also about how unacceptably different he was to many in Trump’s constituency, that is, black.)
No. As his campaign staff learned early on “Let Donald be Donald.” And let journalists evaluate him for who he is and what he does, not discount his excesses as calcified beyond changing due to his certain age.
Leonard Cohen’s Darker Last Word
And let’s not forget those who grow and learn throughout their years. Only last month, Leonard Cohen released his final testament in his new album, You Want it Darker. Cohen, who died last week at age 82, left us in the shadows of his wisdom, his poetry often deeply mysterious, his insights sometimes keenly political. I have to wonder whether he didn’t anticipate the vigilance to be required in the period ahead with his song, “It Seemed the Better Way.” Deep in Cohen’s throat he warns:
Seemed the better way
When first I heard him speak
But now it’s much too late
To turn the other cheek
Sounded like the truth
Seemed the better way
Sounded like the truth
But it’s not the truth today
I better hold my tongue
I better take my place
Lift this glass of blood
Try to say the grace.
*** “The ‘Dangerous, Volatile Game’ Trump Plays With The White Working Class,” NPR’s “Fresh Air,” (Nov. 2): As for where the Democrats fell short, New Yorker writer George Packer says years of neglect by the Dems enabled Trump to exploit the biases of the white working class and turn them into a ‘self-conscious identity group.’” Note that this was prior to the election.
Terry Gross: You describe a battle among Trump’s opponents to define his supporters. And you say, you know, are they having a hard time economically, these supporters, or are they just racists? Do they need to be listened to or do they need to be condemned and written off? Can you talk a little bit more about this discussion among Trump’s opponents about how to define and deal with his supporters?
Packer: “I mean, this is a big question for journalists, for people who support Clinton, for people who are appalled by Trump. What do we think of his following? Are we — do we hold it responsible for — in a sense, for everything that Trump is and does because they support him? You could. It’s a bit of a destructive course to take because in the end, you’re essentially going to be writing off – what? – 40, 45 percent of the country as being beyond the pale. And I don’t know how we continue to do politics in a democracy if we simply can’t listen to one another, if we simply close the door and say you are beyond redemption.”
2. GEN BEATLES NEWS
***Gen Beat Meet-Up in New Orleans This Week: GBONews heads this week to New Orleans for the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Annual Scientific Meeting, Nov. 16-20, along with 25 Journalists in Aging Fellows. That’s GBO’s program with GSA and New America Media.
However, generations-beat reporters not able to make it to the Big Easy may still benefit from GSA’s virtual Wikipedia of new research on nearly every topic under the senior sun.
The conferences searchable online program—with 500 papers and sessions–is posted at: https://gsa2016.abstractcentral.com/planner.jsp. (At the opening screen just click “Continue as a Guest” to get into the program.) You can search by city or state, academic institution, experts’ names, or a wide spectrum of key words. If you locate a session title that may figure into a story you’re planning, GSA’s Todd Kluss [tkluss@geron.org] can usually provide you with a speaker’s contact information for an interview. (But wait until after the conference.)
If you are near the French Quarter, you’re welcome to come up to the press room at the Marriott Hotel, in Studio 3, to obtain a press badge. There will be press lunch briefings on Thursday (“Isolation: The Stealth Health Threat”) and Friday (“Families Caring for an Aging America”).
Also, Friday, you’d be welcome at the Journalists Reception and Meet-Up, also in the GSA press room, from 5:30-7 p.m. Afterward, those wishing to continue the conversation may repair to the nearby Creole House for a no-host dinner.
This year’s nonprofit sponsors of the Journalists in Aging Fellows program are the Silver Century Foundation, AARP, the Commonwealth Fund, the Retirement Research Foundation, and the John A. Hartford Foundation.
*** Retirement Finance Writer John Wasik’s latest book departs from his frequent topic for the New York Times. Not about late-life income, the volume, his 16th book, is about a late genius: Lightning Strikes: Timeless Lessons in Creativity From The Life and Work of Nikola Tesla (Sterling), about the recluse inventor who is now memorialized as the name of an increasingly robotic car.
If you can support it in any way — passing along a press release (below) to a media person, refer me to a speaking venue, writing something kind on amazon.com, doing social media or buying some copies for the upcoming holidays — I’d be most appreciative. Rather cryptically, Wasik e-mailed GBONews, “It’s groundbreaking because it combines the augmented reality of Pokemon Go, some new insights on Tesla and really neat dead-tree illustrations. And, yes, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book — even though it took more than a decade.” Aside from those dead trees (??), the book’s press release promises to offer new “insights into his relationships with the most powerful men of the time, including a series of unpublished letters between him and Westinghouse, J.P. Morgan and his friend utilities baron Sam Insull, an Edison protégé.
For media review copies, contact Blanca Oliviery, Sterling Publishing, boliviery@sterlingpublishing.com. And to contact author: johnwasik@gmail.com, 312-246-1121.
3. THE STORYBOARD
*** KQED Public Radio’s Seven-Part Series on the Shortage of Affordable Mental Health Care has earn top California honors for health reporters April Dembosky and producer Ingrid Becker. Aired around the state from May to August, the “State of Mind” series included such stories as “How Therapy Became A Hobby of the Wealthy – Rather Than A Necessity for the Mentally Ill,” “Mental Health Study: Sorry, I’m Not Accepting New (Black or Poor) Patients,” and “Sorry, the Therapist Can’t See You — Not Now, Not Anytime Soon.” Although the series covers a range of age groups, it’s relevant across the chronological spectrum.
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Northern California Chapter, is honoring Dembosky, a former Journalists in Aging Fellow, and Becker, at its Excellence in Journalism Awards dinner for health reporting, presented in mid-November. Dembosky will also share an award in SPJ’s breaking news category for covering the devastating Lake County Fire last year and the community’s struggle to recover.
For explanatory journalism, a collaboration between the Retro Report and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting won for “America’s Atomic Vets,” the story of U.S. soldiers “used as guinea pigs” in nuclear tests in the post-World War II era. Kudos for the video and written investigation go to Jennifer LaFleur, Amanda Pike, David Ritsher and Kyra Darnton.
Sacramento Bee reporter Cynthia Hubert, picked up an obelisk for her long feature “Genny’s World – Homeless in Sacramento: A Death on the Streets.” Hubert told the story of septuagenarian Genny Lucchesi and “the challenges her family and community faced in trying to help her secure a safe, secure home.”
*** “Don’t Touch My Medicare!” by Trudy Lieberman, Harper’s Magazine (November 2016): Lieberman, the veteran blogger for Columbia Journalism Review, asks provocatively in her second long Harper’s essay, “Is the Beloved Program on Its Last Legs?”
Lieberman draws her headline from a letter a woman wrote to President Obama in 2009, stating, “I don’t want government-run health care. I don’t want socialized medicine. And don’t touch my Medicare!” Public confusion is hardly new on this. The same demand was thrust at House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., during seniors’ protests over the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. (A famous news photo taken at a demonstration where elders surrounded the congressman’s care showed one woman draping herself over the hood.)
Lieberman details bipartisan efforts behind-the-scenes to erode Medicare’s coverage and shift costs to beneficiaries. Looking beyond this year’s presidential election, she stresses, “The big question is who should bear the burden of necessary revenue increases—taxpayers or Medicare beneficiaries. So far the answer from the government, many economists, and conservative advocacy groups is, unequivocally, the beneficiaries.” She quotes former Medicare trustee Marilyn Moon, who “warns that as more of the cost burden is shifted to the beneficiaries, ‘the likely reaction will be that benefits become so small Medicare won’t remain viable. It would destroy the program.’”
Lieberman continues, “It’s ironic that when it comes to one of the government’s most popular public programs, there’s no talk of raising taxes—an option polls show much of the public is willing to support. The failure of policymakers to consider revenue increases reflects the success of the right’s 30-year crusade to change the conversation.”
In an interview, former Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said “his fellow Democrats were poor strategists, always finding themselves in rearguard actions trying to block provisions they didn’t like.”
This year, she reports, “staffers led by House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, have been crafting legislation that would begin to convert Medicare from social insurance to a premium-support or voucher arrangement.” Lieberman asks, “Will Brady’s proposed premium support be large enough to keep pace with health-care inflation? Will the personalized option he envisions leave beneficiaries, about half of whom live on less than $24,000 a year, holding the bag for thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs? Will Medigap policies disappear altogether, forcing the millions of Americans now relying on them into Medicare Advantage plans?”
MA plans, the program’s HMO packages for seniors, are legally required to offer beneficiaries the same basic benefits as traditional Medicare, but “that may no longer be the case with a premium-support system. Some proposals are aimed at giving sellers of MA plans the freedom to change benefits, premiums, and copays at will, further destroying the idea of social insurance. It’s possible these proposals would attract younger seniors, who are likely to be healthier, leaving only the older, sicker beneficiaries in traditional Medicare. If this happens, Medicare’s risk pool would be destabilized, leading to ever-higher premiums for those who remain and, eventually, to what the insurance industry calls a death spiral.”
Lieberman, who was Consumer Reports chief investigative health editor for years, notes, “A real marketplace assumes that buyers have good information. But after writing about this program for 28 years, I’ve concluded that one of Medicare’s biggest deficiencies is the lack of information we have about how it works, how to navigate it, and how to make good choices. For instance, it’s unlikely that those currently considering MA plans know that in June, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to eliminate $52 million in funding for the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, which offers unbiased counseling to people coming into Medicare, those already in the program, and disabled people. The SHIPs, located in every state, served more than 7 million people last year. According to Roy Blunt, a Republican senator from Missouri, however, they were among the ‘unnecessary federal programs’—and so their funding was axed. Without SHIPs, more would-be beneficiaries will be easy targets for sellers of MA plans.”
*** “Behind Closed Doors: A Closer Look At In-Home Senior Care,” by Jennifer Margulis, Jefferson Journal, Jefferson Public Radio (Ashland Ore., Nov 1): About the inadequate screening of in-home caregivers by franchisee businesses (like Home Instead Senior Care and Visiting Angels) has just been published in Jefferson Public Radio’s Jefferson Journal.
4. EYES ON THE PRIZE
***USC Annenberg Deadline for California Reporters: December 1 is the Fellowship Application deadline for one of its all-expenses-paid health journalism trainings It come with a $1,000 Reporting Grant and trip to Los Angeles for the training this coming March. Called the five-day California Health Journalism Fellowship, the program focuses on two themes: How neighborhood life, social inequities, race, education and the environment influence health, and the promise of health care reform and health system innovation.
Their announcement states that the program learn in-depth “about how Obamacare is affecting health care in California, as well as exploring the role that factors such as race, ethnicity, pollution, violence, transportation, land use, and food policy play in an individual’s prospects for good health.”
Good news for non–Californians: The Fellowship is open to print, broadcast, and online journalists from California, or those based elsewhere who contribute to California media outlets. Both newsroom staffers and freelance contributors are encouraged to apply. And it’s not just health reporters we’re looking for. We welcome applications from any journalists with a serious interest in exploring community health. To encourage collaboration between mainstream and ethnic media, preference will be given to applicants who propose a joint project for use by both media outlets.”
For more information on applying, visit the Center for Health Journalism or e-mail Nesita Kwan at healthj@usc.edu.
*** Seven Media Leaders Were Named among this year’s 50 “Influencers in Aging” for 2016. Tapped by PBS’s Next Avenue news site on aging in America, the list. Presented for the second year, includes advocates, researchers, writers, experts and others, who “continue to push beyond traditional boundaries and change our understanding of what it means to grow older,” according to the Next Avenue website.
Ashton Applewhite: She was singled out as Influencer of the Year. The author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism (2016), longtime blogger, and voice of the “Yo, Is This Ageist?” blog, Next Avenue credited her she as being “at the forefront of a new movement — a revolution, really — that challenges all of us to examine the ageist stereotypes and language that have gone unquestioned in American culture until now. She published a New York Times op-ed headlined, “You’re How Old? We’ll Be in Touch.”
Ruth Finkelstein: Associate Director, Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, Columbia University, New York: The online citation states, “To journalists who cover the aging beat, Finkelstein is legendary for four reasons: She is a brilliant, driving force behind Columbia’s Age Boom Academy, an annual program that lets reporters and editors learn from the nation’s leading researchers on the subject. After listing some of her other accomplishments, Next Avenue commented, “And she’s a hoot.”
Howard Gleckman: Previously, a senior correspondent in the Washington bureau of Business Week for over 20 years covering health, elder care and tax issues, Gleckman is now a Senior Fellow at The Urban Institute. His experience caring for his father and father-in-law, spurred him to write Caring for Our Parents: (St. Martin’s Press 2009). He currently writes a regular parent-care blog on Forbes.
Helen Dennis: Co-author of the bestseller, Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for Career Women (Scribner, 2008), Dennis is a leading expert on preparing for the non-financial aspects of retirement. A consultant on employment and retirement, she has worked with more than 15,000 employees at corporations and universities. Also, says the citation, “Over 1.3 million readers devour Dennis’ insights and advice in her weekly syndicated column, Successful Aging.
Leslie Stahl: In 2016, the 60 Minutes correspondent published Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting (Blue Rider Press). Since joining CBS News in 1972, Stahl has won 12 Emmys and been “a trailblazer for women in the field,” Writes Next Avenue.
Norman Lear: Now 94, the historic television writer and producer All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons and other hit sit coms, may not be a journalist, but as founder of People for the American Way, he’s been a major defender of first Amendment rights. More recently he’s been an outspoken critic of ageism (age 80 “is not circling the drain”) and took on the subject in TED talks and on his widely read Facebook page. Lear’s 2014 memoir, Even This I Get to Experience (Penguin, 2014), is also the basis of the new documentary, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, aired in October on PBS’s American Masters series.
Paul Kleyman: Yup, the editor of GBONews and director of New America Media’s Ethnic Elders Newsbeat is pleased to included among the 2016 Influencers.
Also to be noted are NPR News reporter on aging, Ina Jaffe, who made last year’s list, and Influencer-in-Chief Jim Pagliarini. Who? The president and CEO of Twin Cities PBS (TPT), along with colleague Judy Diaz, founded and created Next Avenue as public media’s first and only national service for America’s booming 50+ population.
Now be sure to influence your health and get your influenza shot.
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The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online with in-kind support from New America Media (NAM). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. NAM is an online, nonprofit news service reaching 3,000 ethnic media outlets in the United States. GBO News readers are invited to visit the NAM website, and click on the Ethnic Elders section logo on the right side. Opinions expressed in GBO do not represent those of NAM. Copyright 2016, JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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