GBO NEWS: Journalists in Aging Fellowship Deadline, June 29; Silicon Valley Boomer Summit; Dr. Ruth, the Queen & More at 90; Senior Bullies; Dementia and Guns; “Aging Parents, Stressed Families” & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations– Celebrating 25 Years.
June 7, 2018 — Volume 18, Number 7
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), 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. [paul.kleyman@earthlink.net]. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply sending a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, you’ll receive the table of contents in an e-mail, so just click through to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
In This Issue: Take a Knee Against Ageism. (Arthritis? Then raise a Fist!)
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** 9thJournalists in Aging Fellowship Deadline, June 29($1,500 Plus Trip to Boston): ***Star TribuneElder-Abuse SeriesWins Associated Press Media Editors Award.
2. BOOMING BOOMER BIZ: *** 15thSilicon Valley Boomer Business Summit, in Berkeley, June 20-21 (Millennials, Schmillennials).
*** “Aging Parents, Stressed Families,” series byJackie Crosby, MinneapolisStar Tribune;
*** “A Surprising Bullying Battleground: Senior Centers,” by Matt Sedensky, Associated Press;
*** “Museums are trying so hard to attract millennials that they are ignoring their elderly visitors, says arts chief,” by Richard Marsden, Daily Mail (UK);
*** “Ways to Talk With a Parent About Signs of Dementia,” by Emily Gurnon, Next Avenue;
*** “In Elderly Hands, Firearms Can Be Even Deadlier,” by Paula Span, New York Times’ “New Old Age” column;
*** “Taking The ‘Journey’ Through Alzheimer’s Together,” by Ina Jaffe, NPR Weekend Edition.
4. AGE BEATLES NEWS (GOING LIKE 90):
*** Longevity Scientist Leonard Hayflick, turned 90, May 20, featured in The Longevity Report, YouTube,“On the Verge of Immortality, Or Are We Stuck With Death?”;
*** Dr. Ruth Westheimer (“Grandma Freud” herself), 90 on June 4;
*** Betty Rhodes,“Senior Corner” columnist, The Napa Valley Register,” also 90;
*** Not So “Old-Old,” Carroll L. Estes, Happy 80thon May 29, working on new book, Aging A-Z: Critical Concepts in Gerontology.
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Fellowship deadline, June 29: The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) Journalists in Aging Fellows Program and GBONews.org publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG) havereceived renewed grant support to welcome its 9th cohort of midcareer reporters. Since its founding in 2010, this program has been responsible for upwards of 600 news stories in English, with many linking back to their original ethnic-media publication in Spanish, Chinese and other languages. The new program will put the total number of reporters – half from mainstream media outlets and half from ethnic media in the United States – to more than 150.
The fellowships aims to train journalists in the under-covered issues in aging, as well as to disseminate information about new scientific findings, policy debates, innovations, and evidence-based solutions. Fellows, selected based on competitive story proposals, will receive a $1,500 stipend plus an all-expenses-paid trip to GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting in Boston, next November.
The 2018 application deadline is Friday, June 29. Past fellows have published their stories in regional and national media, such as NPR News, theWashington Post, Sing Tao Daily, India Currents, and La Opinión. A continuously updated list of stories from the fellows is available at www.geron.org/journalistfellows.
The 2018 funders to date include AARP, The Silver Century Foundation, The Retirement Research Foundation, and The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Find details about the program at Journalists in Aging Fellows Program. Those with additional questions can direct them to project co-directors, JGN’s Paul Kleyman, pfkleyman@gmail.com, phone: (415) 821-2801; or Todd Kluss, GSA’s associate director of communications,tkluss@geron.org, phone: (202) 587-2839.
*** Star Tribune Elder-Abuse Series Wins Associated Press Media Editors (APME) Award: For their five-part series “Left to Suffer.” the Minneapolis daily’s reporter Chris Serres and photographer David Joles received APME’s Public Service 2018 Grand Prize.
The judges praised the projectfor the “beauty of the prose and the photos, the shocking findings themselves, the tremendous governmental reaction and response.”
Another winner with reporting on issues partly touching on the aging of prisons was thePhiladelphia Media Network’s remarkable Reentry Project. The collaborative news initiative among 15 general-interest newsrooms also involved community and ethnic media organizations. They investigated issues and credible responses to the challenges of recidivism and reentry.
The project included the Solutions Journalism Network, the Knight Foundation and Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University and explored “the social and economic toll of high recidivism rates and by highlighting models that demonstrate promise in facilitating a successful transition for returning citizens.” It took the Grand Prize in the category for Community Engagement (Large newsrooms).
The winners will receive their awards during a news leadership conference Sept. 11-12, in Austin, Texas.
2. BOOMING BOOMER BIZ
*** 15thSilicon Valley Boomer Business Summit, June 20-21: Millennials, Schmillennials—not for this story, anyhow. Economists and technology experts still say boomers rule the market roost in aging America, even while markets want to sell forever young. Fact is, investment is slim in the 50-plus market, despite its controlling a whopping 83 percent of discretionary income in the United States. (See Joseph Coughlin’s book, The Longevity Economy.)
If you’re covering the generations beat, whether or not you think that’s just a business-page story, think again. If you’re writing about senior health and caregiving, ask where are those needed products and services going to come from? And will they be well-designed, affordable, culturally competent, and non-intrusive? Also, where can you get a good overview of what’s in the market pipeline, who’s financing those things, and how to judge the effectiveness of what’s new in meeting this aging nation’s emerging needs?
One of the best places for reporters to dip their toes into the senior-market’s future is the Silicon Valley Boomer Business Summit, run by University of San Francisco entrepreneurship professor and author, Mary Furlong, and her consulting firm. (Mary Furlong & Associates also runs the Annual What’s Next mini-conference within the American Society on Aging’s annual spring meeting.)
The Silicon Valley program, at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, Calif., June 20-21, will also include the Boomer Business Plan Competition. The on-stage pitches by the finalists, as they are grilled by the money experts, can be a revealing Shark-Tank exercise in how, for better or worse, the VCs and business leaders think about what will go or not in the American marketplace.
Attending will be about 400 VC’s, entrepreneurs, and corporate executives focused in aging and health—looking toward U.S. and global markets. The first day, for instance, will include two afternoon sessions on business and technology developments in China. (Full-disclosure, this editor will be on a first-day morning media-and-aging panel.)
So, check out the Summit’s website. They are very accommodating to reporters, so if you’re in the Bay Area and wish a media pass or are interested in reaching speakers for interviews, contact Lori Bitterat lori@loribitter.com.
3. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Aging Parents, Stressed Families” is the project title for MinneapolisStar Tribune’s new continuing series on the challenges facing working caregivers. According to the paper’s website, the “Strib’s” reporter Jackie Crosby, who covers generational issues, met with dozens of families and interviewed more than 100 experts. The first two stories ran June 2 and 4.
Crosby, who reports on generational issues, explains in a project overview that—as so often happens on the age beat–she became immersed in the issue through years of care for her father, who “was slowly dying from late-stage lung cancer.”
She continued, “It crushed his quality of life, and put an enormous strain on my mother, his main caregiver, and my two brothers, who lived less than a mile away. My mother’s insight into my dad’s health and her own stress were roundly ignored — even when I had her write down the words ‘palliative care’ and give it to my dad’s family doctor. She left that appointment with another prescription for my dad and a pamphlet on depression for her. No end-of-life discussion, no talk of connecting her with the supportive services that were widely available in her community.”
When the paper’s editors urged staff to apply for Marquette University’s nine-month O’Brien Fellowship in Public Journalism, “I jumped at the chance to try to document this increasing burden on families.” She got the fellowship, and the Twin Cities got the series.
Crosby e-mailed GBONews, “Future coverage depends in part on community response, which so far has been really strong. We’re envisioning three or four more pieces on such topics as housing, health care, family finances and the paid eldercare workforce shortage.” By mid-week after the first installment appeared, the two stories garnered a total of over 150 comments. Crosby has also reported about 15 other stories. She added, “Now that the first two have hit the street, I’m hoping to peel off some other topics that are vital to families caring for aging loved ones.”
Also helping on project were Marquette students Jack Goods, Patrick Thomasand Yiren Yang. Star Tribunephotographer Renée Jones Schneiderspent months documenting the lives of Minnesota families who are caring for aging friends and relatives. They helped produce the project’s half-dozen videos. The mainbars also comes with four caregiver profiles and, of course, a resources sidebar.
“Invisible Workforce’ of Caregivers is Wearing Out as Boomers Age,” was the June 2 opener. Crosby writes, “Growing numbers of Americans face the immense and often overwhelming challenge of caring for an aging parent or other loved one, a burden that will skyrocket as 76 million baby boomers move into their 80s and need help coping with dementia, cancer, heart disease or just plain frailty and old age.”
Crosby continues, “Social trends and medical progress are working against each other. Half of the 35 million family caregivers who now assist older adults have full-time jobs. Families are more geographically dispersed. Adult children are squeezed between raising their own families and managing a dizzying array of housing needs, health care, insurance, finances and supportive services for their elders. ‘We’re dealing with a system that was developed 50 years ago,’ said Susan Reinhard, director of AARP’s Public Policy Institute. ‘This is an army, an invisible workforce that needs to be helped. You need to give them training. You need to support them. And they need a break, as if they were on a job.’”
She goes on to quote University of Pittsburgh psychiatry professor Richard Schulz, who led the nation’s first comprehensive assessment of family caregiving for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (former the Institute of Medicine), “I don’t think people have really connected all those dots, other than those of us who are doing this work.”
Crosby also notes, “In January, Congress passed legislation to develop a national strategy to support families in an aging America, the National Academies’ top recommendation. But with 18 months to devise an initial plan, many advocates continue to see a lack of urgency. ‘We’ve been talking about this and studying it to death,’ said Dr. Joanne Lynn, a geriatrician, hospice physician and elder care policy advocate at the nonprofit Altarum Institute in Washington, D.C., who said, ‘It’s time to get angry.”’
The extensive article, which continues with family profiles and excellent graphics, stresses that in 2016, thousands of low- and middle-income seniors benefited from support and services helping them to remain at home. “But Congress and the Trump administration are discussing rules that may restrict such flexible use of taxpayer dollars to try to rein in care costs. Even in Minnesota, the pace of change is too slow, warned a detailed state-by-state assessment of long-term care services by AARP and the SCAN Foundation.”
Crosby quotes Carol Levine, director of the families and health care project at the United Hospital Fund of New York: “There is no long-term care system. There is growing awareness of the importance of family caregivers, and an intent to help them. But it doesn’t translate into meaningful programs.”
In part two, “Double Duty: Caregivers Take on a Second Shift in an Aging America,” (June 4), Crosby wrote, “With a tightening job market, a small but growing number of large companies have established paid-leave policies or expanded existing coverage to attract and hold on to skilled workers. But just 13 percent of the nation’s private-sector workforce is offered paid family leave. Such benefits are two to three times more likely to be given to managers and professional workers than to lower-wage workers. And companies are much more apt to offer paid time off to bond with a baby than to care for an aging parent with medical needs.”
*** “A Surprising Bullying Battleground: Senior Centers,” by Matt Sedensky, Associated Press (May 12): “The unwanted were turned away from cafeteria tables. Fistfights broke out at karaoke. Dances became breeding grounds for gossip and cruelty. . . . Nursing homes, senior centers and housing complexes for the elderly have introduced programs, training and policies aimed at curbing spates of bullying, an issue once thought the exclusive domain of the young.”
He cites Robin Bonifas, PhD, a social work professor at Arizona State University and author of the book Bullying Among Older Adults: How to Recognize and Address an Unseen Epidemic, [2016, Health Professions Press].“She sees it as an outgrowth of frustrations characteristic in communal settings, as well a reflection of issues unique to getting older. Many elderly see their independence and sense of control disappear and, for some, becoming a bully can feel like regaining some of that lost power. ‘It makes them feel very out of control,’ Bonifas said.”
Bonifas added, “’There is far less recognition of bullying as a problem among seniors compared with young people. Even among those who have been called bullies, many are unaware how problematic their behavior is until it’s labeled.” The article notes a booklet that is circulated by the National Center for Assisted Living.
Sedensky quotes Marsha Wetzel, who “moved into a senior apartment complex in Niles, Ill., after her partner of 30 years died and her partner’s family evicted her from the home the couple shared. At Glen St. Andrew Living Community, she said she was met with relentless bullying by residents mostly focused on her being a lesbian. One man hit Wetzel’s scooter with his walker and unleashed a barrage of homophobic slurs. A woman rammed her wheelchair into Wetzel’s table in the dining room and knocked it over, warning ‘homosexuals will burn in hell.’ In the mailroom, someone knocked her in the head, and in an elevator, she was spit on. ‘I’d just go in my room and barricade my door and just pray,’ said Wetzel, now 70 and living at a senior complex in Chicago. ‘I just felt like a slug, like I was nothing, like I wasn’t even human.’”
*** “Museums are trying so hard to attract millennials that they are ignoring their elderly visitors, says arts chief,” by Richard Marsden, Daily Mail (UK, June 1): Speaking at the Hay Festival, Charles Saumarez Smith, CEO of the Royal Academy, said “museums were becoming ‘ageist.’” The article goes on, “Smith, 64, said: ‘A lot of the pressure from organisations like the Heritage Lottery Fund is to get young audiences. ‘But if you look at the demographic of the Friends [supporters of the RA], it tends to be older people who have the leisure time and inclination to come . ‘I have this issue constantly – we are constantly trying to promote the institution to a younger age group. ‘Yet, if I am honest, institutions are in danger of what I think occasionally and notice is an element of age discrimination – younger people good, older people not so good.’”
Smith also said: ‘Institutions are in danger of age discrimination – younger people good, older people not so good.’” (Thanks to Ashton Applewhite of This Chair Rocks for Tweeting this.)
*** “Ways to Talk With a Parent About Signs of Dementia,” by Emily Gurnon, Next Avenue (June 1): Gurnon reports on the Alzheimer’s Association’s new two-question survey June’s Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month. The survey found, “Almost 30 percent of the approximately 1,000 adult respondents said they would not talk to a relative about troubling signs of dementia, despite their worries. A majority said they would be concerned about ‘offending’ a family member (76 percent) or ‘ruining [their] relationship’ with that person (69 percent). And 38 percent said they would wait to talk to their loved one until symptoms worsened.”
*** “In Elderly Hands, Firearms Can Be Even Deadlier,” by Paula Span, New York Times’ “New Old Age” column (May 29): Span writes that frightening armed confrontations involving elders having dementia, “and of older adults, particularly white men, committing suicide with guns — may become more common in coming years. About a third of Americans over age 65 own a gun, and an additional 12 percent of them live with someone who does, the Pew Research Center reported last year.
Span continues, “Though the dementia rate has declined in the United States, the growing number of older Americans means more people will develop it. At the same time, gun sales have risen dramatically.
*** “Taking The ‘Journey’ Through Alzheimer’s Together,” by Ina Jaffe, NPR Weekend Edition (May 12): In Jaffe’s ongoing profile of Winston and Pansy Greeneof Valencia, Calif., she reports, “The Greenes have been doing everything together for 61 years. I’ve stayed in touch with them for the past five. In our first interview in 2013, they told me that they met at a party when Pansy was just 16 and Winston was 18.”
Jaffe says later in the nearly 6-minute piece, during a visit to their senior center, “Winston explains to his lunch companions why they’re letting me tag along. ‘It’s not for us,’ he assures them. Talking to me is part of his and Pansy’s mission to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease, particularly for other African-Americans, who are especially at risk. ‘Too many people have Alzheimer’s and it’s hush hush,’ he says, adding that he and Pansy can help people just ‘by being advocates and talking about it.’”
Jaffe’s story well complements one GBONews highlighted in our last issue, “Alzheimer’s: The Disease that Steals Memories,” by D. Kevin McNeir, editor of TheWashington Informer (May 2), serving African American readers in the D.C. area, and cross-posted on the Diverse Elders Coalition website, June 5.
4. AGE BEATLES NEWS (GOING LIKE 90)
*** Famed Longevity Scientist Leonard Hayflick, turned 90 on May 20. TheStanford University biologist’s discovery of the“Hayflick Limit” in the early 1960sset forth a half-century of gerontological research related to those little telomeres, the tiny shoestring-like caps involved in determining the life of many cells. If you’re tired of those anti-aging PBS-station pledge-break specials, Hayflick is the real deal. He’s featured in a new 15-minute video edition of Bernard Starr’s “Longevity Report” (May 21), titled, “On the Verge of Immortality, Or Are We Stuck With Death?”
Starr, long a leading educational psychologist, writer and broadcaster in aging, produced this excellent tutorial on the future of human life extension—from the prehistoric average of 18, to today’s life expectancy of 80, to a max of 120, or more, perhaps, tomorrow.The program asks, “If scientists find cures for all the leading causes of death will that open the floodgates for the explosive increase in human lifespan? Opinions are divided,” says Starr. He goes on, “Hayflick believes that beyond cures for diseases we must still unravel the mystery of cellular aging. He proposes a new approach to research that could solve the mystery.”
*** Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the noted sex-and-relationships therapist sometimes called “Grandma Freud,” turned 90 on June 4. “Dr. Ruth” told New York Times reporter James Barron, that Queen Elizabeth II, who is two years her elder, should have been seen smiling more during the nuptial festivities for her grandson, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle.
Barron wrote, “Always the therapist, she offered advice: ‘Somebody should have talked to the queen — look happy so others can rejoice even if you disagree.’” She continued. “How wonderful is this — how wonderful that she is still alive to experience change in the British Empire, when a divorced biracial woman can marry a prince.”
Dr. Ruth, a German Jew who survived the Holocaust, has two new books out, both from Amazon Publishing. Her autobiography is newly illustrated as a graphic novel. The other book isStay or Go: Dr. Ruth’s Rules for Real Relationships. Dr. Ruth emphasized, “Anybody who’s in a good relationship, don’t buy this book.” She wrote both with Pierre A. Lehu.
Also, there’s a radio program for a new generation:“There is an age that does not know me,” she declared to Barron. He explained, ”She said the format would be to go to college campuses and tape episodes with a younger co-host. She would not say where the program would be carried because the contract had not been signed. She did say the producers had initially wanted a woman as the co-host. ‘I said, “No, give me a man,” she said. “I will let him talk, too — I will discipline myself.”’”
*** Also Among the Young at “Old-Old” Heart is Betty Rhodes, “Senior Corner” columnist for The Napa Valley Register,” informing Northern California’s wine country. Rhodes is the only regular senior-life columnist along the Golden State’s north coast GBONews has learned of in years. (Neither the San Francisco Chronicle nor Examinerhave assigned regular space for the topic for at least 20 years.) This editor only became aware of her recently, when she covered my talk on ageism in the media at San Francisco’s Institute on Aging.
In a subsequent e-mail exchange, I learned that Rhodes, who is also the immediate past chair of the Napa County Commission on Aging (where she’s been a member since 2001), started the column about 15 years ago at the smaller Calistoga Weekly. After a year or so, the column moved over to the daily Register (founded in 1863). Both papers are owned by Lee Publishing.
For Rhodes, it was her first foray onto a newspaper broadsheet (or online). “I am a shy person, and it’s always been easier for me to write, rather than speak,” she said. Evidently, though, she spoke effectively enough to the editors, having “begged and pleaded … just to get my foot in the door.”
After noting that “seniors are not being served by any of our county newspapers,” the Calistoga Weekly’s editor gave her a chance. Later, she dug in again over at the Register (Sunday circulation, 12,000). She added, “I’m very grateful for both editors for realizing that seniors need a voice, plus, I’m sure they were thinking, ‘How do we get rid of this pest?’”
GBO’s editor couldn’t help but observe that Napa’s “Senior Corner” sounds like a cozy wine bar, maybe with a good selection of old vine zinfandels, to which she quipped, “’Old’ is not in my vocabulary. I’m okay with ‘older’, but “old,” not so much.” Although admitting to being more of a beer fan, she emphasized, “I enjoy gathering my friends, the readers, to my kitchen table for coffee and conversation.”
*** And Not So “Old-Old” — Happy 80thtoCarroll L. Estes, PhD, (May 29), founder of the University of California, San Francisco’s, Institute of Health & Aging. She’s been putting the final touches on her new book, Aging A-Z: Critical Concepts in Gerontology (Inequality, Power, and Resistance) with Nicholas B. DiCarlo. Routledge will publish the volume in early 2019.
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2018 JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
To subscribe of unsubscribe, or if you have technical problems receiving issues of GBO or if you’d like to be removed from the list, e-mail me at paul.kleyman@earthlink.net, or pfkleyman@gmail.comor phone me at 415-821-2801.