GBO NEWS: 15 Named Journalists in Aging Fellows; Under Biden’s Social Security Plan Hood (Guess Who Hasn’t a Plan); NORC-AP’s Aging & COVID-19; Seniors’ Ethnic/Racial Econ Disparities; New Retirement Reporter at Gannett’s Desert Sun; Remembering Gray Panther’s Maggie Kuhn; CalPERS Private Equity Gamble (Again?); & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations – Our 27th Year.
October 22, 2020 — Volume 27, Number 11
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. 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: With a year like this, who needs dystopian fiction?
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Journalists in Aging Fellowship Picks 15 Reporters (Plus info on free online access for all media to Gerontological Society of America Annual Scientific Meeting);
*** Video Doc, “Mental Health in Older Jewish Americans,” by Brad Pomerance awarded by American Psychological Association;
*** Bay Area Journalism Awards to 3 Journalists in Aging Fellows: Christine Nguyen, MD., Jaya Padmanabhan and Viji Sundaram.
2. SOURCES FROM THE NOOZ FRONT
*** “Most Home Health Aides ‘Can’t Afford Not to Work’ — Even When Lacking PPE,” by Eli Cahan, Kaiser Health News;
*** “Joe Biden’s Social Security Reform Plan: A Look Under the Hood,” on Mark Miller’s Retirementrevised.com;
*** “Growing Older in America: Aging and Family Caregiving During COVID-19,” The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (October 2020);
*** “Health Care in the 2020 Presidential Election: Issues Important to Older Americans,” by Gretchen Jacobson, Aimee Cicchiello, and Elizabeth Fowler, To the Point (Commonwealth Fund blog);
*** “Living Below the Line: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Economic Security Among Older Americans, 2020,” report by the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Gerontology Institute;
3. THE STORYBOARD — MEANWHILE (BELOW THE FOLD)
*** “Marching Orders for the Next Investment Chief of CalPERS: More Private Equity,” by Mary Williams Walsh, New York Times;
*** “As Humanity Ages the Numbers of People with Dementia Will Surge,” Special Report, The Economist;
*** “Not just Obamacare: How Supreme Court’s Conservative Majority Could Remake American Health Care,”by Susannah Luthi, POLITICO;
*** “The Forgotten History of the Radical ‘Elders of the Tribe,’” by Susan J. Douglas, New York Times, profiles late Gray Panthers founder and anti-ageism warrior, Maggie Kuhn.
4. GEN BEATLE PROFILE: *** Gannett’s Desert Sun (Palm Springs) Hires Maria Sestito for Retirement Newbeat.
5. GEN BEATLES NEWS: *** “Unretirement” Journalist & Author Chris Farrell Co-Launches Podcast, “Small Change: Money Stories from the Neighborhood,” on low-income entrepreneurship;
*** New York Times Generations Beat Reporter, John Leland, has bestseller, Happiness Is a Choice You Make translated into Chinese;
*** GBO’s Paul Kleyman publishes reminiscence, “My Resistance: Standing Trial for Standing for Peace,” in The Sixties.
*** Dying of Old Age in a Time of Plague, Radio Producer Karen Michel’s “first-ever” short art film, premiers at Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Oct. 22-Nov. 1.
*** Determined, New Docu Film by Melissa Godoy on 3 women facing Alzheimer’s, premiers at Utah’s 11th DOCUTAH Film Festival, Nov. 2-7.
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE:
*** The Journalists in Aging Fellows Program Selected 15 reporters for the 11th Annual collaboration of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and Journalists Network on Generations (JNG, publisher of GBONews.org).
The program has, over the years, chosen 185 journalists, from more than 15 news organizations, half from the general-audience press and half from ethnic or community media in the United States. To date the reporters have generated about 750 articles in English, with many translated from their original versions in Spanish, Chinese and other languages, on a wide span of subject areas in aging.
The 2020-2021 “class” of New Fellows includes journalists from such widespread media outlets as Politico, the Associated Press, SinoVision, PBS Next Avenue, Palabra (news site of the National Hispanic Journalists Association), and the NAACP’s historic magazine, The Crisis.
A continuously updated list of published fellowship stories since the program began is available at www.geron.org/journalistfellows.
Following is the list of this year’s New Fellows, whose proposed in-depth projects for 2020-21 were chosen by a panel of journalists and gerontologists. In addition, the program will bring back 10 past Fellows to continue their coverage of issues in aging, who will be announced soon.
Lola Butcher, Contributor, Undark Magazine digital platform, Springfield, Mo.: Project: Long-form article, Life Expectancy at Birth and Life Expectancy at 65: Why is longevity declining in the U.S.
Melody (Xuanlu) Cao, Producer/Editor for Special Series, SinoVision (WMBC 63, NYCTV 73, Chinese language television), New York: Project: “Mental Health of Asian American Senior in Pandemic,” in-depth video series.
Diane Eastabrook, Contributor, PBS Next Avenue, Downers Grove, Ill.: Project: Older Workers in Corporate America, two-part article series on emerging issues for the aging of the workforce.
John Ferrannini, Assistant News Editor, Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco, Calif.: Project: Series on LGBTQ elder housing issues, including the pandemic’s impact, senior isolation, a national overview and the status of low-income seniors.
Carl L Johnson, Digital Media Content Creator, PolyByDesign/ on KALI FM (106.3, HD2 24/7), Court Fair Oaks, Calif.: Project: PolyByDesign’s Faika Podcasts, also on Facebook Live Shows and DASH Radio; Series on Pacific Islander elders’ standard of living and healthcare, including pandemic impact.
Jenny Manrique, Contributor, Palabra (new site of the National Hispanic Journalists Association): Project: Pandemic effects on Latino elders and Direct-Care Staff in Texas, California & U.S.
Margaret (Peggy Sands) Orchowski, Contributor, The Georgetowner, Washington D.C.: Project: Series of five monthly columns titled “The Changing Cityscape of Silver Cities,” on aging in one of the area’s more prominent but also diverse communities.
Jatika H. Patterson, Contributor, The Crisis (NAACP’s historic magazine), Washington, D.C.: Project: Article examining solutions to poor care and abuses in many Medicaid-only facilities serving Black and other low-income elders.
Nargis Rahman, Contributor, Tostada Magazine, Detroit: Project: Three-part series on how Detroit Bangladeshielders, especially women, along with local leaders combat misinformation in immigrant communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. May also appear in Bangla Shangbad.
Rachel Roubein, Health Care Reporter, Politico, Arlington, Va.: Project: Investigative article on what COVID-19 reveals about lingering policy failures on long-term care in the United States.
Lara Salahi, Reporter, Gannett Media’s New England North Unit, Boston, Mass.: Project: Three-part series, “Reimagining Elder Care in the Age of Coronavirus”.
Maria Sestito, Retirement Issues Reporter, The Desert Sun, Palm Springs, Calif.: Project: Five-part series on how COVID-19 exposes elder isolation and related issues of long-term care as a persistent problem.
Casey Smith, Statehouse Reporter, The Associated Press & Report for America, Indianapolis, Ind.: Project: Six-part series on conflicts of interests in the assisted-living industry.
Eduardo Stanley, Editor, Community Alliance bilingual monthly newspaper and Nuestro Foro, on KFCF 88.1FM, Fresno. Project: Two stories with photographs, “Immigrant Latino Farmworkers Aging.”
Julia Yarbough, Anchor/Producer, KHSL/KNVN “Action News Now,” Chico, Calif: Project: Three-part series on senior caregiving in California—Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Aging after one year, senior-care facility operations during the pandemic, and the effects of capital investment firms on care in assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.
Stepping in this year for the first time, as the fellowship program’s co-director and editorial director, is health care reporter Liz Seegert. Representing the Journalists Network on Generation, she’s also the long-time editor of the blog on aging for the Association of Health Care Journalists. Program co-founder Paul Kleyman moves into a supporting role as Senior Advisor. Continuing as program co-director is Todd Kluss, GSA’s director of communications.
Funding for this year’s Journalists in Aging Fellows Program was provided by the Silver Century Foundation, RRF (the Retirement Research Foundation); The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Gannett Foundation.
*** Journalists Can Request a Complimentary Media Registration for the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) virtual 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting Online — the country’s largest interdisciplinary conference in the field of aging — from November 4 to 7. Reporters, who may be a little busy the day after the Nov. 3 election, may take heart – the online sessions will be recorded for later viewing.
The conference, presented with the 2020 theme, “Turning 75: Why Age Matters” (in recognition of GSA’s 75th anniversary) will include hundreds of research-based scientific and social science sessions, offering reporters direct access to leading authorities and new discoveries in gerontology. Those include the latest developments related to COVID-19, vaccines, telehealth, innovative technologies, Social Security, retirement, different dementias, family caregiving, long-term care, longevity and more. GSA will launch a searchable program of all meeting sessions soon.
Interactivity with researchers: Every scientific session will offer live discussions where interested meeting attendees can connect in real time with session presenters. The conversation can also continue afterward through discussion forums.
Extended access to programming: Meeting content will be available beginning October 28 to allow registrants to view presentations on demand, enabling them to select which of the live presenter discussions they wish to attend. Meeting content will remain available until the end of 2020. Post conference, GSA staff may also assist reporters in contacting presenters for interviews.
The free media registration allows access to all scientific sessions and the virtual exhibit hall. Registration information is available at www.geron.org/press.
ALSO PRIZED WERE:
*** Brad Pomerance’s Documentary “Mental Health in Older Jewish Americans” for Jewish Life Television (JLTV) picked up the prestigious News Media Recognition Award from The American Psychological Association’s (APA) Society for Media Psychology & Technology for his 2019 special, “Mental Health in Older Jewish Americans.” The documentary also received the Award of Excellence from the Religion Communicators Council earlier this year.
The 42-minute production can be viewed here. Pomerance developed the production with support from Journalists in Aging Fellowships sponsored by the Journalists Network on Generations and The Gerontological Society of America, with funding by the Silver Century Foundation.
*** 2020 Bay Area Journalism Awards Went to three recent Journalists in Aging Fellows: The San Francisco-area trio, Christine Nguyen, MD., Jaya Padmanabhan and Viji Sundaram, were honored by the San Francisco Press Club’s Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards in various categories for stories the produced with support from the fellowship program.
Taking First Place in the category for Radio/Audio–Non-Commercial: Feature Story/Serious Nature, wasChristine Nguyen, MD, KALW Public Radio, for her long-form production, “Vietnamese Immigrants Care for Parents with Dementia, Amidst Stigma,” Also named for production on the story were KALW’s Lisa Morehouse and Gabe Grabin.
For Digital Media: Feature Story/Serious Nature, Second Place went to Jaya Padmanabhan’s story, “For Aging Immigrants, Food from their Homeland is Key to Happiness,” published by India Currents, also posted on thebolditalic.com. (She picked up two other honors for non-ageing pieces in her weekly column in the San Francisco Examiner.)
Receiving Second Place for Newspapers-Non-Daily: News Story was Viji Sundaram, for “A Mouthful of Pain for Older People: Sen. Cardin Introduces Medicare Dental Bill,” for India-West. She also earned kudos for “An India-West Special Report: As Death Approaches, Older Indian Americans Unprepared for the End.”
GBONews.org invites readers to tip us off to recognitions you or colleagues have received anywhere in the country for stories on aging and related generational subjects. Drop a note to GBONews Editor Paul Kleyman.
2. SOURCES FROM THE NOOZ FRONT
*** “Most Home Health Aides ‘Can’t Afford Not to Work’ — Even When Lacking PPE,” by Eli Cahan, Kaiser Health News (Oct. 16, 2020): KHN and The Guardian are investigating, more than 1,200 health worker COVID deaths, including those of dozens of home health aides.
The story reports, “As they’ve put themselves at risk, this workforce of 2.3 million — of whom 9 in 10 are women, nearly two-thirds are minorities and almost one-third are foreign-born — has largely been overlooked. Home health providers scavenged for their own face masks and other protective equipment, blended disinfectant and fabricated sanitizing wipes amid widespread shortages. They’ve often done it all on poverty wages, without overtime pay, hazard pay, sick leave and health insurance. And they’ve gotten sick and died — leaving little to their survivors.”
Cahan continues, “The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has ‘abdicated its responsibility for protecting workers’ in the pandemic, said Debbie Berkowitz, director of the National Employment Law Project. Berkowitz is also a former OSHA chief. . . . Furthermore, some home health care agencies have classified home health providers as contractors, akin to gig workers such as Uber drivers. This loophole protects them from the responsibilities of employers, said Seema Mohapatra, an Indiana University associate professor of law. . . . Should workers contract COVID-19, they are unlikely to receive remuneration or damages.”
*** “Joe Biden’s Social Security Reform Plan: A Look Under the Hood,” on Mark Miller’s Retirementrevised.com, Oct. 15, 2020 podcast interviews long-time economist on America’s aging labor force, Richard W. Johnson, co-author of a new Urban Institute report on Biden’s plans for both Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, which provides cash benefits to low-income older adults and people with disabilities.
Miller explains, “The report relies on DYNASIM, a sophisticated economic model that the Urban Institute has been using since the 1970s to projects the size and characteristics of the U.S. population 75 years into the future.”
So, why would a distinguish journalist and frequent New York Times contributor not compare the Biden proposal to his opponent’s? Says Miller, “The answer is simple – there is no Trump campaign plan for Social Security.”
He adds, “The Trump campaign hasn’t offered up detailed policy ideas on Social Security, or really, much of anything else. There’s no GOP platform either – something that typically comes out of a political party’s convention. We do know the history of Republican legislative proposals on Social Security. They typically call for restoring the program’s long-range financial balance by cutting benefits via higher retirement ages, less generous cost of living adjustments. But there’s nothing on the table right now to consider.”
He notes that while “most Democrats and all progressives believe benefits should be expanded to improve their adequacy,” Biden has proffered a moderate “balanced plan” that “doesn’t go as far as the party’s left wing would like, but it marks a shift from where Biden — and most other centrist Democrats — have stood on Social Security over the last decade. Notably, Biden’s plan is much more detailed than the typical policy offerings from presidential candidates, which Johnson discusses.” Listen to the podcast on his website or via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.
*** “Growing Older in America: Aging and Family Caregiving During COVID-19,” The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (October 2020): The researchers interviewed nearly 1,900 adults in August and September, finding that 59% (up from 50% in 2018) think health insurance companies should take major responsibility for paying the costs of continuing care. Today, 56% (up from 45% in 2018) say Medicare should cover long-term care costs.
Strikingly, COVID-19 has not increased long-term care planning by survey participants. The report reveals that even fewer people than in 2018 say they’ve planned for their own care needs (46% versus 37%). More people today also believe it unlikely that a family member will need care (43% versus 34%). Yet, the study shows, younger caregivers (ages 18 to 39) say they’re providing weekly more care than they indicated two years ago.
Among its many findings, the study shows, “Since 2018, concerns about telehealth have declined when it comes to worry about low-quality care (51% in 2018 to 37% now), technical issues (42% to 35%), security of health information (42% vs. 27%), and lack of privacy (33% vs. 24%).”
Also, “More than a quarter (29%) of caregivers have struggled to afford providing care, including 41% of those who have been impacted economically by COVID-19 through job loss or lost income.”
Commenting on the NORC-AP study, SCAN Foundation CEO Bruce Chernof, M.D., told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News (Oct. 16), “Americans of all ages are providing even more care to older loved ones, yet in the face of extremely troubling times, they still are not thinking about their future aging and long-term care needs in an action-oriented, productive way. It’s staggering, and these findings are a clarion call for both presidential campaigns to bring the needs of older adults and family caregivers to the forefront.”
*** “Health Care in the 2020 Presidential Election: Issues Important to Older Americans,” by Gretchen Jacobson, Aimee Cicchiello, and Elizabeth Fowler, To the Point (blog), Commonwealth Fund (Oct. 14, 2020): Promises, promises! It may seem too late only 2 weeks from the election, but even post-election reporters may still find it helpful to have an authoritative quick take on what the winner pledged to do. This short piece by health policy analysts at the Commonwealth Fund offer a crisp summary that journalists can review and follow up on.
Noting the overarching issue, the piece begins, “Older Americans traditionally make up the biggest voting bloc in U.S. elections, with the number of people age 65 and older growing by more than 30 percent in the past decade. Because older Americans made up such a high proportion of the electorate, policymakers tend to focus on the health care issues important to them — like improving or expanding Medicare, long-term care, and caregiver support — particularly in an election year. Others blog posts in this series focus on additional issues that matter to both older and younger Americans, including the affordability of prescription drugs and health insurance coverage.”
* Their ”Toplines” are: “Both President Trump and former Vice President Biden have prioritized Medicare coverage gaps, though in different ways.”
* And, “Neither Trump nor Biden has proposed a plan for directly addressing the financial solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which pays for beneficiaries’ hospital bills.”
*** “Living Below the Line: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Economic Security Among Older Americans, 2020,” is a new report by the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Gerontology Institute, found, “Half of all older adults living alone and 23 percent of older couples are unable to achieve that goal and live with some degree of economic insecurity.” The study, released Sept. 23, uses the UMass Boston’s Elder Index, which shows the true cost of living for older adults. Rather than calculate poverty, the Elder Index scrutinizes how much older people need, county-by-county, to make financial ends meet, such as for housing, food and direct health care costs. A summary explains, “The report tracks national and state-by-state details to identify where economic insecurity and racial disparities are most dramatic.”
The report shows rates of economic insecurity among Black, Latino and Asian older adults “far exceeding those of white adults and the overall national average.” For Black seniors, it found that 64 percent of singles and 34 percent of couples were economically insecure. Also, 72 percent of Latino elders living alone and 49 percent of couples struggle to meet basic costs. “Among older Asian adults, 59 percent of singles and 36 percent of couples were unable to reach economic security.”
“The situation is much more dire among older adults of color and the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has almost certainly made their economic circumstances even worse,” said professor Jan Mutchler, lead author of the report.
And the living isn’t too easy for older whites, for whom almost half of singles (47 percent) and 21 percent of couples were economically insecure.
3. THE STORYBOARD — MEANWHILE (BELOW THE FOLD)
Sure, 2020 has turned from yet another year of Tweets into Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, nearly impossible to avoid being pecked apart by mounting pandemic numbers, election tension, fire, flood and the rest. For one bit of news refuge, GBO’s editor gets a kick out of Steven Colbert’s “Meanwhile” segments. But the following items aren’t much good for laughs. Here are a few stories you might only find below the fold, maybe “down algorithm” in modern media, under clicked and out of sight, despite their significance for our aging future.
*** “Marching Orders for the Next Investment Chief of CalPERS: More Private Equity,” by Mary Williams Walsh, New York Times (Oct. 19, 2020): Subhead: “The nation’s biggest public pension fund is consistently short of the billions of dollars it needs to pay all retirees their pensions. It seeks higher returns.” Although buried on page B3 of the Oct. 20 National Edition (and by that day, three screens down the business story listings), GBONews would dummy it into page A1, maybe with the assed drop-head, “Crisis—What Retirement Crisis?”
Walsh, for many years one of the more astute writers on the U.S. pension system, provides a clear and alarming update on how major U.S. public pension systems are once again defaulting to the long discredited practice of pushing their gigantic assets into high-risk private equity funds to make up decades of shortfalls. California’s $410 billion CalPERS fund for the state’s teachers, police, fire fighters and so on, is a cautionary tale, which “like many other pension fund,” has not only calculated far less than it needs to cover future pensions earned by its employees, but is continuing to mishandle its obligations.
How? Walsh describes dryly what this editor has watch for years (often in her ongoing coverage). In this case, it appears that the CalPERS board and their investment consultants have returned in a panic to a failed strategy of the past, determining it must generate a mirage of an annual return — their “7 percent solution” — they only deem possible by sinking more and more into the American casinos called private equity.
Precipitating the story was the hasty departure of the fund’s chief investment officer, Ben Meng, only 18 months after being hired on his promise to press the CalPERS bets on private equity. Walsh reports that recently he “resigned after compliance staff noticed that he had personal stakes in some of the investment firms that he was committing CalPERS’s money to, most notably Blackstone. California state officials in that situation are supposed to recuse themselves, but Mr. Meng did not.” The search for his replacement, she writes, is “slow-moving.”
One sign of the consequences Walsh cites, is in the schools, which have to pay into CalPERS annually to cover their employees’ contributions. “’It gets harder and harder each year,’ said Brett McFadden, the superintendent of a large school district northeast of Sacramento. He has cut art, music and guidance counselors to get more money for the state pension systems every year. ‘These policies are being made in Sacramento, and I’m the one left holding the bag,’” he said.”
In the meantime for all worker groups, COVID-19 furloughs are becoming predictably permanent for those 50-plus, Americans are depleting their retirement savings, and corporations continue their long slide out of providing private pensions and health benefits.
Oh, and where is private equity squeezing out that 7 percent. One story Walsh doesn’t mention that’s been reported elsewhere by her paper and others is about how private equity, notably the Blackstone Group and Carlyle, have gobbled up long-term care facilities, leading to cost cutting and escalated reports of health and safety violations for residents.
*** “As Humanity Ages the Numbers of People with Dementia Will Surge,” Special Report, The Economist (Aug. 27. 2020): Subhead: “The world is ill-prepared for the frightening human, economic and social implication.”
The story (there’s paywall), goes on briefly, “Dementia is a cruel condition, robbing people of their deepest joys and hopes. It may start as a “mild cognitive impairment”: forgetfulness or “senior moments”. But as it progresses, attacking mental agility and eating away memory, it steals much of what counts as identity. When severe, people become incapable of looking after themselves. They lose the ability to read, cook and shop. They forget to drink and get dehydrated, or become incontinent. They suffer delusions, or become frightened or angry, or they sink into an apathetic slump. They require care for all their waking hours, and often supervision when asleep.”
*** “Not Just Obamacare: How Supreme Court’s Conservative Majority Could Remake American Health Care,” by Susannah Luthi, POLITICO (Oct. 15, 2020): Subhead: “The court will soon weigh cases that could shrink Medicaid or undermine Obamacare’s marketplaces if the health care law survives.”
Luthi writes, “Conservative legal experts pointed out that the court’s conservatives might look unfavorably on some health care policies the Trump administration has advanced. Some of these, like an overhaul of Medicare payments to discourage hospital consolidation and rules forcing hospitals to disclose negotiated insurance rates, have bipartisan appeal but test the bounds of executive power to force change through regulation. An administration policy requiring drugmakers to include prices in television ads has already been rebuked by two federal courts who said the health department lacked the power to do so.”
She continues, “Meanwhile, no matter who wins the presidential election, long-running legal battles over Obamacare’s ‘culture war’ issues are likely to continue. For instance, Trump’s rules will likely face court challenges over their attempted expansion of ‘conscience’ protections for doctors and other providers “who object to performing certain procedures, like gender transition services and abortion.”
The story adds, “If Joe Biden wins the presidency, he’ll seek to roll back much of Trump’s regulatory changes to the health care system. But that will trigger a new wave of legal challenges that will come before a federal judiciary that’s been filled with conservative Trump appointees.”
*** “The Forgotten History of the Radical ‘Elders of the Tribe,’” by Susan J. Douglas, New York Times (Sept. 13, 2020): “The Gray Panthers staged rowdy protests against ageism and found common cause with young activists on everything from health care to racial justice. What can they teach us today?”
Douglas, author of In Our Prime: How Older Women Are Reinventing the Road Ahead (Norton, 2020), profiles Maggie Kuhn, “the woman who, 50 years ago, founded the Gray Panthers, a movement to encourage activism — sometimes radical activism — among the country’s older people. Today, both Kuhn and her movement have been all but forgotten. But their mission is worth remembering, commemorating and perhaps even resurrecting, especially in the present moment.”
The op-ed goes on, “Then, as now, was a time of intense activism. Inspired by demonstrations on behalf of racial and gender equality, and against the Vietnam War, Kuhn insisted it was time that the issues facing older people be included in any social reform agenda. Her passion was to shatter every stereotype she could about older people and, as a lifelong feminist, especially older women. Infuriated by being forced out of her job at 65 (and even more irked that her parting gift was a sewing machine), and outraged by what gerontologists in the 1970s championed as ‘disengagement theory’ — the notion that it was normal and natural for older people to simply withdraw from society — she took on what was then, and still is, one of the most socially acceptable biases in our country: ageism.”
Douglas continues, “Kuhn also railed against the rampant negative stereotypes about older people in the media, charging, in testimony before Congress, that ‘old people are depicted as dependent, powerless, wrinkled babies.’ So the Panthers monitored how older people were portrayed on television — if they appeared at all — and then lambasted network executives for demeaning caricatures, and got some eliminated.”
4. GEN BEATLE PROFILE
Full-Time Retirement Reporter in the Sun
*** Welcome, Maria Sestito, to the Generations Beat: This past June, Gannett’s Desert Sun launched the latest full-time newsbeat on aging and retirement with Maria Sestito, who told GBONews in an e-mail, “The Coachella Valley has a larger than average percentage of seniors, but there wasn’t a reporter focused on senior issues.”
The paper, based in Palm Springs, Calif., has so far published her impressive series of in-depth stories, such as about a COVID-19 nursing home crisis; a senior center’s efforts to combat isolation; the health risks of infections and falls for seniors now unable to get pedicures, due to the state’s pandemic-related closure of nail salons; and the genetic-search reunion of a brother and sister after 74 years.
A transplant from New Jersey, Sestito, said she worked in local news on various beats for five years, initially getting into journalism as a staff photographer seven years ago at the Jacksonville, (N.C.) Daily News: “While there, I transitioned into a hybrid reporting/photography position and covered a bit of everything.” She then landed a spot at the Napa Valley Register in 2015, where she “covered crime, courts, housing and mental health, and had my own lifestyle column called ‘Jersey Girl.’” (GBO’s editor hopes she didn’t try doing a column on the pleasures of white Zinfandel. The wine-country crowd might have run her out of Napa Valley.)
Then it was on to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, from which she graduated with her master’s this past May and promptly moved to Palm Springs.
Sestito noted that her new editor received support for the gen beat along with another on tribal affairs from the Report for America’s Groundtruth Project. Report/Groundtruth are among the journalism nonprofits formed in recent years to network, and foster deeper reporting, such as by funding reporting projects on under-covered topics.
Why aging? Sesitito explained, “I first started to gain interest in the area when I was working as a public safety/crime reporter at the Napa Valley Register. I kept noticing different elder abuse stories – both inside and outside of nursing home environments – and started keeping them in a specific folder in addition to writing stories. I wanted to dig in deeper, but, at the time, didn’t really have the resources.”
She continued, “When I left the Register and was at Berkeley, I started working on a project investigating aging in America with the Investigative Reporting Project. There, I gained a more well-rounded idea of what ‘aging’ meant and what focusing on it as a reporter could mean, i.e., more than problems, nursing homes and assisted living facilities.”
Although mainly focused now on the coronavirus, she went on, “I’m hoping to do a mix of solutions journalism, feel-good stories and investigative pieces. Long-term care is still a major focus for me, especially given the current circumstances, but I also want to be sure that I’m treating my sources and subjects with dignity.”
And, we’ll add, crisp writing. Take her feature, “A Palm Springs man was separated from his sister in 1946. Here’s how they finally reconnected in 2020,” (Aug. 10, 2020). Sestito’s lead: “At age 4, Lamar Hoke Jr. walked into his mother’s bedroom one morning to find her dead behind the newspaper she was reading. He ran to get his sister, Connie, who was 11 at the time, and, after she confirmed what he saw, the two of them sprinted down the street to get their grandmother. After that, their memories are all a mess.”
The story added, “Of all the chromosome 23 stories, I had to read this one. Hoke, a character actor in television shows and indie films, had been separated from his older sister when their mother dies of cancer at the age of 28. Different family members took each child. “That was in 1946.They’ve been trying to find each other ever since.”
Sestito, who was also selected this year as a Journalist in Aging Fellow, tags her stories, “Please say ‘Hello’ via maria.sestito@desertsun.com or @RiaSestito.”
5. GEN BEATLES NEWS
*** It’s a Lucrative Day in the Neighborhood: No, not Mister Rogers, but financial journalist Chris Farrell, author of Unretirement, and contributor to Marketplace, New York Times, PBS Next Avenue and others, just co-launched a new podcast, “Small Change: Money Stories from the Neighborhood,” via Minnesota Public Radio. It’s currently into its initial run of eight weekly editions. Each runs about 20-25 minutes.
He observed in an e-mail that although the program isn’t specific to aging, “Most financial advice is geared toward people with enough assets to own a home, save for their children’s college education and contribute to retirement accounts. The advice often isn’t useful for lower-income individuals and families. Yet the goals are the same: To own a home; start a business; pay for education; and achieve financial security.” GBONews counters that all of the above arises from Mr. Spok’s bidding to “live long and prosper.”
Farrell, who co-hosts the podcast with Twila Dang, went on, “Too many people assume that lower-income individuals and families aren’t smart with their money–or so we’re told. That’s wrong. Deeply wrong. . . . People with low and unstable incomes are often creative and collaborative with their finances.”
Their initial program money and disability, Covid-19 and entrepreneurship. For the latter subject, Farrell and Dang interviewed Jose Quinonez, founder and chief executive officer at Mission Asset Fund in San Francisco. He said, “Despite enormous obstacles, people at the margins find ways to manage their financial needs and obligations. What can we learn from their innovative strategies to survive?”
Farrell, whose more recent book is Purpose and a Paycheck, added, “The biggest theme that emerged from the conversations. The importance of community–people coming together to help each other achieve their financial goals.”
Won’t you be his neighbor?
*** New York Times Generations Beat Reporter, John Leland, reports that his bestseller, Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old, Sarah Crichton Books (2018), is being issues this fall in a Chinese edition. He e-mailed, “I love seeing how different cultures present my book.”
*** “Resist!” — GBONews.org Editor Paul Kleyman has published a mote of reminiscence titled, “My Resistance: Standing Trial for Standing for Peace,” in The Sixties (Taylor & Francis/Routledge Press). He recounts his experience as a member of The Resistance against the War in Vietnam. The erstwhile editor of the publication, tagged as “A Journal of History, Politics and Culture,” refers to “the long sixties,” which seems to have taken just about 60 years to reprise its turmoil. Kleyman’s essay, which is now online and will be in the print edition in January, was partly inspired by today’s outcries to “Resist!” Ah, those very lo-o-ng echoes of ages past.
*** Documentary Producer Karen Michel had “my first ever short doc film, ‘Dying of Old Age in a Time of Plague (virtually) screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Oct. 22-Nov. 1, plus a Zoom panel with another filmmaker/documentarian. Kinda unbelievable for me!” More widely known for her public radio productions, especially in recent years on the end-or-life, Michel says the new experimental film “is a sonic and visual exploration of dreams, childhood, memory, Jewish identity, Buddhist practice, and the physicality of death in a time of twin plagues and their too often terminal consequences: the coronavirus and racism.” And the film, at just over 5-minutes long, presents an eyeful for the mind’s eye. The TJFF screening will be its world premiere. For those not heading to Canada, even for the health care, Michel provided this free link.
*** Determined, the New Documentary Film by award winning director, Melissa Godoy, will debut at the 11thAnnual DOCUTAH Film Festival in St. George, Utah, the first week of November. The feature follows three women in Milwaukee, who are at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease, as they offer their brains and bodies to a medical study. It was produced by Therese Barry-Tanner and Eileen Littig, and the trailer is posted here. GBONews readers interested in seeing the full production may request a link from Godoy.
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 2020 JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
To subscribe for free or 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.com or phone me at 415-821-2801.