GBO NEWS: Journalism Fellowship News on Aging; Liz Cheney’s Jan. 6 Ageism, Green Elders & Climate Change; Ethan Hawke’s Love Lesson from Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward; Social Security’s Big COLA; MindSite News Shines Light on Mental Health; Scapegoating Seniors in 4 Languages; Ocean Vuong on Grandmothers; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
July 22, 2022 — Volume 29, Number 8
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. Send your news of important stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [pfkleyman@gmail.com]. 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. NOTE ALSO: Some news links below hit paywalls and are inaccessible without subscriptions, although a number of those do allow free access to the first few stories.
In This Issue: Watergate: 18 Minutes “Erased”; Jan. 6: Secret Service Texts “Migrated.”
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** Journalists in Aging Fellowship Deadline Aug. 1; *** NPF Names 20 New Age for Aging Journalism Fellows
SPECIAL LATE-BREAKING NEWS BLOG: What’s With Liz Cheney’s Ageism?
2. GOOD GREEN SOURCES: *** “Aging Greener: Climate Change’s Impact on Older Adults,” Zoom Panel Recording Link; *** Generations Special Issue “Aging and Climate Crisis”; *** “Loneliness Among Older People” Tip Sheet from Harvard Media Center’s Journalist’s Resource.
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS: *** Rob Waters’ New MindSite News “Shining a Light on Mental Health”; *** Ethan Hawke on lesson of life, love and longevity from his documentary on Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; *** Rich Eisenberg’s MarketWatch column Gets Personal in his, “The View From Unretirement.”
4. THE STORYBOARD:
*** “Social Security on Track for Huge Cost-of-Living Increase,” by Kerry Hannon, Yahoo! Money;
*** “When Governments Fail to Address Community Issues, Who Steps In?” Marketplace interview with Michelle Wilde Anderson, author, The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America;
*** “A Man Must Decide to Flee Ukraine to Join His Family or Stay to Care for his Parents,” by Eleanor Beardsley, NPR All Things Considered ; *** “Don’t Joke About Old Age (It’s Bad for Your Health),” by Emily Laber-Warren, Newsweek;
*** “Scapegoating Older Adults–Ageism Rears its Ugly Head,” one-hour YouTube press briefing by Ethnic Media Services in four languages, plus article with GBONews editor Paul Kleyman by EMS’s Peter Schurmann.
5. WORDS FROM THE WISE: *** “Time Is a Mother,” interview of Ocean Vuong, NPR’S Fresh Air, on Storytelling and Vietnamese grandmothers.
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Apply for Journalists in Aging Fellowship: It will be the program’s 13th year, co-sponsored by GBONews’ publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations and The Gerontological Society of America (GSA). Reporters for the Class of 2022-23 will receive a stipend of $1,500, plus all travel expenses paid to attend GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting this fall. Although the official application deadline is Aug. 1, we’re cognizant of the need to juggle summer schedules, so GBONews readers needing more time may contact us to request an extension. (See our contact information below.)
The fellowship provides selected journalists with training about prime issues in aging for a wide range of media audiences, while also enabling the reporters to cover the latest scientific findings, policy debates, innovations and evidence-based solutions. To date the program has included 201 reporters, who have produced hundreds of stories on aging in multiple languages for about 150 mainstream and ethnic/community media outlets in the United States.
Selected fellows will attend GSA’s 2022 conference, Nov. 2 to 6, in Indianapolis, Ind., with this year’s theme of “Embracing Our Diversity. Enriching Our Discovery. Reimagining Aging.” There, the reporters will participate in an initial fellows-only training workshop crafted to highlight background and sources on evolving issues in aging, and it will include discussions with veteran journalists on how to position generational stories in the current media environment.
Then Fellows will research their project stories among the associations hundreds of expert presentations by many of the 3,500 gerontologists expected to convene at the meeting from across the US and 50 other countries. Sessions and research papers will span every topic under the aging sun from cellular-level findings on cancer or Alzheimer’s disease to social research in areas like family caregiving or demographic trends. (We are watching developments with COVID, and will offer options for remote participation in the fellowships as necessary, so don’t hesitate to apply due to concerns about the pandemic.)
The selection committee of gerontologists and editorial professionals will review all applications.
As in previous years, half of the fellows will be selected from general-audience media and half from ethnic or other minority media outlets, such as those that serve LGBTQ or disability communities within the U.S. Staff and freelance reporters and who report on or wish to cover issues in aging are eligible to apply.
The application website is being update later this week at Journalists in Aging Fellows Program. A continuously updated list of stories from the fellows is available online. We thank The John A. Hartford Foundation, NIHCM Foundation and others to be announced with their support.
If you have questions about the fellowships, contact the program’s Co-Directors, Liz Seegert, lizseegert@gmail.com, program coordinator, Journalists Network on Generations, or Todd Kluss, tkluss@geron.org, GSA’s director of communications. You may also contact me, Paul Kleyman, co-founder and senior advisor to the program, pfkleyman@gmail.com.
*** NPF Selects 20 Journalists for Living Longer: The New Age for Aging Journalism 2022 Fellowship: The National Press Foundation (NPF) has named 20 journalists to attend its “Living Longer: The New Age for Aging” Journalism Fellowship. The three-day September program will be in Washington, D.C., with “training sessions examining the complexities of an increasingly multigenerational workforce. They’ll learn how to use data to accurately cover the 50+ age group, explore the impacts of artificial intelligence, intersectionality and other factors affecting older workers, and glean exclusive insights about federal aging policy in 2022 and beyond.”
The New Age for Aging Fellows are: Mayra Acevedo, WIPR TV AL, Puerto Rico; Renee Cordes, Mainebiz, Maine; Tony Hicks, Bay City News Service, California; Madeline Holcombe, CNN, Georgia; Anitra Johnson, Delaware Online, The News Journal, Delaware; Rebecca M. Knight, Insider, Massachusetts; William J. Kole, The Associated Press, Rhode Island; Jacqueline López-García, La Opinión, California; Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Freelance, Oregon; Lauren J. Mapp, San Diego Union-Tribune, California; Alexandra Marvar, Freelance, Being Patient, Massachusetts; Karen Michel, Independent/Freelance, New York; Laura Putre, IndustryWeek, Endeavor Business Media, Ohio; Anne Tergesen, Wall Street Journal, New York; Annmarie Timmins, New Hampshire Bulletin, New Hampshire; Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press/USA Today Network, Michigan; Monica Torres, HuffPost, New York; Lori Valigra, Bangor Daily News, Maine; Adam Walser, WFTS-TV/ABC Action News, Florida; Kiersten Willis, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia.
Special Jan. 6 Breaking-News Thought
This editor’s heart sank as I watched Rep. Liz Cheney’s otherwise eloquent summation of Thursday’s riveting conclusion to this summer’s series of hearings by the House January 6 Committee. After nearly three hours of mesmeric testimony about Donald J. Trump’s “criminal,” as one witness put it, dereliction of duty on that day, the Wyoming representative blemished her compelling closing statement by reverting to ageism.
I don’t know why she decided to peg the GOP’s Trump loyalists as “the 50-, 60-, and 70-year-old men who hide themselves behind executive privilege,” but in these hearings ageism has swung by decades. Cheney’s remark contrasted the reluctant Trumpians to the courage of previous witness, Cassidy Hutchinson. Her unimpeachable integrity was impugned by Trump and others on the right in part because she was only 23 on that fateful winter’s day in 2020.
I’m guessing, as well, that one would not have to Google far to find oppositional references to the committee’s stalwart chairman, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, 74, as being Black. Suggestive prejudicial references have also tried to daub women in politics, especially the suffragists Cheney praised in her talk.
For the record, the four Trump staff or advisors who claimed executive privilege are: Mark Meadows, 63, Dan Scavino, 46, Kash Patel, 42, and, of course, Steve Bannon, 68, who’s been trying to wiggle out of that bogus assertion (and now his trial). Among those cheering the MAGA minions on are GOP Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ga., age 48; Matt Gaetz, Fla., 40; and Lauren Boebert, Colo., 36.
Could Cheney, 56, have meant her oblique age reference to invoke the current attacks on Washington’s perceived “gerontocracy”? Stories ridiculing “out-of-touch” politicians in liberal and conservative national media have been aimed at President Joe Biden and long-time Democratic members of Congress, for standing in the way of “fresh blood,” as GOP standard-barer David Gergen put in multiple interviews recently related to his new memoir. Did Cheney expect a wave of bipartisan support from young voters in November? Whatever her intention, it was a shame to hear her smudge so passionate a defense of our democracy with this non sequitur of age bias. —Paul Kleyman
2. GOOD GREEN SOURCES
*** “Aging Greener: Climate Change’s Impact on Older Adults,” is a 75-minute Zoom recording of the May 25 panel from our webinar series in the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program. The discussion stressed that climate change can pose particular challenges for elders in ethnic/racial minority groups, those of low-income, and people with chronic health conditions.
Speaking were Louis D. Bailey, manager of membership and organizing, WE ACT for Environmental Justice ; distinguished gerontologist Mick Smyer, PhD, who is CEO of Growing Greener: Climate Action for a Warming World, and is a former provost and an emeritus professor of psychology at Bucknell University; and Harry “Rick” Moody, PhD, editor of the newsletter “Human Values in Aging,” and retired vice president and director of academic affairs for AARP. Moody is working on a new book about climate change and aging.
*** Also, Mick Smyer was guest editor of a cool new resource, “Aging and the Climate Crisis,” a special issue of Generations, from the American Society on Aging (ASA). Smyer’s introductory essay, The Climate Crisis: What’s Aging Got to Do With It? , article is one of 14 articles, such as “Promoting Climate Change Activism Among Older People,” by Karl A. Pillemer and coauthors; “Climate and Cultural Vulnerabilities of Indigenous Elders,” by Amelia Marchand; and “What’s Your Third Act?” by Bill McKibben.
In his piece, “Why Aging Policy Must Include Climate Action,” ASA President and CEO Peter Kaldes, notes, “An EPA study from 2013 found that a majority of older Americans live in just nine states and that five of those states (California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania) are highly susceptible to climate change. In fact, ‘20% of older Americans resided in a county where a hurricane or tropical storm was likely to make landfall over the 10-year period from 1995 through 2005.’”
*** “Loneliness Among Older People: A research roundup and 5 tips for covering the topic,” by Kristen Senz, (July 5, 2022): It was good to see this journalistic meta-analysis from The Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative. Sens’ piece summarizes several studies on “the prevalence of loneliness, its effects on health and its links to earlier morality, and various interventions to address the problem.”
According to the story, “This questions about the health effects of loneliness have motivated an explosion of new research over the past few years, particularly since social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has raised new fears about loneliness levels worldwide.”
Senz writes, “Unlike most other public health crises, loneliness isn’t all bad. About 20% of the population is experiencing a normal, even helpful level of loneliness at any given time, says Liz Necka, a program director in the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging. ‘That should be expected, because loneliness can be motivating to promote social connection,’ Necka says. ‘The issue is when loneliness becomes chronic.’”
3. GEN BEATLES NEWS
*** Rob Waters’ New www.Mindsitenews.org Lifted Off This Summer, promising to “Shining a Light on Mental Health.” Among recent posts have been “Dial 988: California’s new mental health crisis hotline debuts,” by Jocelyn Wiener; and “Combating veteran suicides with peers, therapy, housing – and a little horse sense,” by Laurie Udetsky, on Swords to Plowshares, the San Francisco nonprofit for homeless veterans and its equine therapy program, combining outdoor psychotherapy and visits with horses.
In another story, “When Gayness Was a Crime and a Mental Illness,” writers Lee Romney and Jenny Johnson tell the story of Gene Ampon, “who was arrested in the 1960s and sent to a psychiatric hospital to be “cured” of homosexuality — and the movement to pride and resilience that helped save him.”
On announcing MindSite News, Waters particularly credited his founding co-editor and very special “longtime friend,” veteran health editor Diana Hembree. He wrote, “This is the new digital journalism site we have created that will report on mental health issues with a social justice bent.” Stories bend toward topics ranging from gun violence legislation to psychedelics.
*** Ethan Hawke was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning (July 17, 2022) by Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz about the new HBO Max docuseries he directed, “The Last Movie Stars,” on the enduring, if stormy at times, marriage of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Given the warty world of Hollywood romance, Hawke found himself crafting a rare rose of a love affair that lasted for their lifetimes.
In a rarity seldom acknowledged in American media, Hawke said of the couple’s example, “I feel we all need heroes that show the end of our life [as] the possibility of being the best part of our life.”
*** Rich Eisenberg Goes Up-Close and Personal in his MarketWatch column, “The View From Unretirement,” (July 6, 2022) reflecting on: “How being an older worker pushed me out of my comfort zone — what I learned.” In January 2022, he left his position at the PBS Next Avenue website, where he’d been managing editor for a decade. Eisenberg writes, “I challenged myself to do a combination of part-time work and mentoring that I’d never done.”
He explains, “When I “unretired” at 65 from my job I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d spend my time. But I knew that, among other things, I wanted to challenge myself, use the expertise I’d accumulated over a four-decade career and mentor. I recently found a way to do all three and I enthusiastically encourage others who unretire to try to do the same. I did it by becoming the Digital Media Strategies Director and an adjunct professor at NYU’s famed Summer Publishing Institute (SPI), a 44-year-old, intensive program for 89 students, primarily for recent college grads and rising seniors.”
As an educator, he confesses, “I wasn’t sure I could pull it all off because I’d never taught before or managed a program quite like SPI. But I plunged in.” Eisenberg continues, “It began with a load of prep work from my New Jersey home.” Super-achiever that he is, by mid-June, “I acted as full-time ringleader for the digital media program at NYU’s downtown location near the World Trade Center. I took a 6:25 a.m. bus to New York daily and got home in the evening around 7:30 (this is retirement?, I sometimes thought).”
In the piece, he reflects on his first outing as a teacher, “I think being an older worker helped make the NYU program work well, demonstrating the usefulness of older workers — including unretired ones.” He adds, “If you’re unretired, or hope to be soon, I hope you’ll go for the chance to do something like I did. Don’t worry that you’ve never done it before or aren’t sure if you can. Believe in yourself.” Meanwhile, Eisenberg has been pursuing other new projects, notably, his MarketWatch column and continued writing for PBS Next Avenue.
4. THE STORYBOARD
*** “Social Security on Track for Huge Cost-of-Living Increase,” by Kerry Hannon, Yahoo! Money (July 15, 2022): The Lede: “Retirees could see a double-digit percentage increase in their Social Security benefits next year as inflation continues to run hot, according to several new estimates. Based on new inflation data through June, the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits, or COLA, could be an increase of 10.5% next year, according to estimates from the Senior Citizens League, boosting the average retiree benefit by $175.10 every month.”
Oh-oh: The Yahoo Money senior columnist and author adds, “But it’s not all roses. The hike doesn’t kick in until next year even as prices rise now. The higher benefit could also increase the tax burden and reduce government benefits for lower-income retirees. And it complicates the outlook for Social Security for everyone else.”
A Quote: “Renters not protected by rent control laws, low-income seniors who spend a larger share of their incomes on food, and seniors in rural areas and suburbs who rely on cars to get around are more affected,” Monique Morrissey, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, told Yahoo Money.”
* Also, Hannon was interviewed, July 13, on fellow author Nir Bashan’s “Coffee Break” podcast about her latest and 14th book, In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work (McGraw Hill, 2022). A bestselling author and contributor to such major media as The New York Times and Forbes, she addresses positive steps people can take in the post-pandemic environment.
Well, with variant AB.5 upon us and counting, her advice will certainly hold for most anyone in areas such as mastering virtual interviews, managing remote work and thinking through how to transition into a more satisfying later-life career.
Journalists can access the digital version of In Control at 50+ at this link or request a review hardcopy from Scott Sewell @ Scott.Sewell@mheducation.com.
*** “When Governments Fail to Address Community Issues, Who Steps In?” Marketplace, July 6, 2022 interview with Michelle Wilde Anderson on her new book, The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America (Simon & Schuster, 2022): The book examines “what happens when local governments in high-poverty neighborhoods are left out of federal and state investment.”
To meet their budgets, says Anderson, the towns often charge struggling residents higher fees and fines. Marketplace also notes that according to Columbia U’s Center on Poverty & Social Policy, “Monthly poverty rates rose in April to 13.0% and May to 14.1% with the monthly child poverty rate rising as well.”
This is a 6:30-minute audio interview with Anderson by program host, Kai Ryssdal. The book looks at Lawrence, Mass., and three other communities. Although it’s not specific to older people, what she describes has been devastating to areas that have been rapidly aging, as many younger people have had to move on.
*** “A Man Must Decide to Flee Ukraine to Join His Family or Stay to Care for his Parents,” by Eleanor Beardsley, NPR All Things Considered (July 20, 2022, 3 min. audio and transcript): The Dek: “A Ukrainian man is being forced to choose between the two: a wife and three children who have fled the country and aging parents who are trapped behind enemy lines.”
The Lede: Beardsley begins, “I first met 52-year-old Andriy Kononenko in February when he showed me around his language school in Kyiv. He had other branches in cities like Odesa to teach Russian and Ukrainian to foreigners. . . Kononenko says when the war broke out, he joined his neighborhood territorial defense force and manned a checkpoint.”
The Nutshell: “His wife and three kids got out immediately to Poland. Now they have visas to go to the U.S. As a father of three, he could join them, but there’s a problem: “Because my parents are stuck in the occupied territories, and they are not exactly young people. And there is no way they can travel. It’s far. You know, you have to travel through about 50 checkpoints, Russian checkpoints.”
*** “Don’t Joke About Old Age (It’s Bad for Your Health),” by Emily Laber-Warren, Newsweek (June 15, 2022): The Lede: “Not long ago, Julie Ober Allen noticed that her teenage son was constantly teasing her about being old. His attitude annoyed her, until she realized where he got it from: herself. ‘I make jokes about aging all the time,’ she says. Allen’s own behavior surprised her. As a health disparities expert at the University of Oklahoma, she spends a lot of time studying discrimination—and here she was, letting all these negative beliefs about aging seep out in a constant stream of quips and self-deprecating humor.
Allen got another surprise when she completed a study on the health effects of such ‘everyday ageism.’ Not only are seemingly innocuous everyday slights highly prevalent, but the people most exposed to them were also more likely to have health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic pain and depression.”
The Stats: “The study, [https://tinyurl.com/mpd26jb3] published in JAMA Network Open, looked at about 2,035 Americans between the ages of 50 and 80, of which 93 percent encountered demeaning messages about aging on a regular basis.”
*** “Scapegoating Older Adults–Ageism Rears its Ugly Head” (“Where are the Gray Panthers When We Need Them?”). This is a one-hour YouTube press briefing by Ethnic Media Service (EMS, July 15, 2022). The Zoom was presented in English plus UN-style simultaneous translations in Spanish, Mandarin and Korean. The session has 70 participants from ethnic media outlets from around the United States.
According to EMS, “Everyday ageism–stereotyping or discriminating against people because of their age–looms large for people as young as 50.” AARP News, EMS goes on, reports that 93 percent of older adults say they have faced some form of age discrimination. Meanwhile, “Headlines question whether President Biden is too old to run for a second term, and the mental health of Sen. Diane Feinstein. Women disproportionately suffer from age-related bias, especially at the workplace. Moreover, ageism has harmful healthcare impacts. Speakers this discussed age-related bias, and its physical and mental impacts on older adults.”
Moderator and EMS founding director Sandy Close introduced speakers Julie Allen, PhD, of the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, and lead researcher on the recent JAMA Open Network paper, “Experiences of Everyday Ageism and the Health of Older US Adults”; geriatrician Louise Aronson, of UC San Francisco, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her book “Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life”; and GBONews.org editor Paul Kleyman, national coordinator at Journalists Network on Generations.
* ALSO, “The ‘Chronic Rash’ of Ageism in Mainstream Media,” by Peter Schurmann, is an interview with GBONews editor Paul Kleyman that EMS ran on July 7. The news site contacted me following publication of my story on the latest rash of ageist stories on President Biden and other older politicians, which ran in the June issue of GBONews. The piece, headlined “Lazy Journalism and the Fallacy of Gerontocracy,” also ran in LA Progressive (June 26, 2022).
5. WORDS FROM THE WISE
*** Time Is a Mother” – NPR Fresh Air, (April 5, 2022, 37-minute audio with full transcript): Ocean Vuong, bestselling author of the critically acclaimed 2019 novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, about growing up in Connecticut, where he arrived at age two, as a Vietnamese immigrant. Recipient of a MacArthur genius” grant, he has a new collection of poems related to his mother’s death called Time Is a Mother. At one point, Fresh Air interviewer Tonya Mosley, asked Vuong, “You write that you grew up around Vietnamese women — your mom and your grandmother — who used stories as portals. What did that storytelling look like in the day to day?”
Vuong replied, in part, “What I realize now was that I was at the seat of master storytellers. . . These three women — when a woman decides to leave [her] country, something quite miraculous, in my opinion, happens in that they have to decide what to take out and leave behind in the archive of their self and what to salvage and carry forth because the memory is a limited archive. And they’ve made a decision – what stories do I leave behind? What stories do I carry across borders and trepidations in order to lend and gift to my children and grandchildren?”
He continues, “Sometimes they’re folklore, sometimes they’re personal stories, but all of them were already beautifully crafted through hundreds of retellings. My grandmother knew when to pause, when to grow anticipation, what part of the scene to describe, what part to speed up through exposition. And we were all just enraptured by what she was able to do.
“And I think it made me understand then . . . that nobody survives by accident. Refugees and immigrants survive because they’re innovative and creative. Survival is a creative act . . . We often see the refugee as a victim or in a passive condition, you know, who is pleading for universal help and aid. But in fact, the refugee is an incredibly creative artist. I would even go as far as to say that my elders and many elders around the world who survive geopolitical violence are survival artists.”
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 2022 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
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