GBO NEWS: Columbia U’s Age Boom Taps 36 Reporting Fellows; The (not so) Super Age; Hollywood & The United States of Ageism; Age Bias and Fox Sports; FDA on Non-Prescription Hearing Aids; & MORE
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
Aug. 26, 2022 — Volume 29, Number 10
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: Happy Women’s Equality Day—Stop Voter Suppression Against Anyone!
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE: *** Columbia University’s Age Boom Academy Announced 36 Journalism Fellows
2. THE STORYBOARD:
*** “FDA Upends The Hearing Aid Market By Permitting Sales Of Non-Prescription Devices,” by Howard Gleckman, Forbes;
*** “Ex-Fox Sports Workers Sue Network for Age Discrimination,” by Winston Cho, Hollywood Reporter;
*** “Barbara Kruger’s NYC Exhibits Display New Work and Revisits Old Pieces in New Contexts,” by Karen Michel, NPR Here & Now;
*** “Ageism in Hollywood: ‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen It,’” by Richard Eisenberg, PBS Next Avenue;
*** “Assaults on the ‘Gerontocracy’ Reek of Ageism — Creativity and Inventiveness Don’t Fade with Birthdays,” by Chris Farrell, MarketWatch;
*** “Finish Line: Work Advice from Boomers and the Silent Generation,” by Erica Pandey, Axios Finish Line.
3. THE BOOKMOBILE: “The (Not So) Super Age, and the Joys of Gig Work for the Elder Economy,” Paul Kleyman’s review of a book by Bradley Schurman from Harper Business.
1. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Columbia University’s Age Boom Academy Announced 36 Journalism Fellows for its 2022 online training program in October. A joint project of Columbia’s Robert N. Butler Aging Center and its School of Journalism, the program will present six expert Zoom panels spaced between Oct. 13 and 21, exploring the theme, “Caregiving and Our Longer Lives – The $500 Billion Question.”
The new Age Boom Fellows are: Pamela Appea, Independent Journalist; Carlos Ballesteros, Staff Reporter, Injustice Watch; Liza Berger, Editor, McKnight’s Home Care; Andrea King Collier, Freelance Journalist and Author; Sabrina Crews, Digital Editor, Next Avenue; Lisa Esposito, Health Reporter, U.S. News & World Report; Zachary Fletcher, Freelance; Patti Greco, Freelance; Sara Harrison, Freelance; J.O. Haselhoef, Journalist, Haitian Times.
Also named were: Hadley Hitson, Rural South Reporter, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser; Dartinia Hull, Freelance; Nina Keck, Senior Reporter, Vermont Public Radio;
Sofie Kodner, Freelance; William J. Kole, New England Editor, Associated Press; Jennifer Lagemann, Freelance; Jeanette Leardi, Freelance; Jim Lenahan, Executive Editor, AARP Media; Ronnie Lovler, Correspondent, Main Street Daily News; Sara Luterman, Caregiving Reporter, The 19th; Nora Macaluso, Freelance; Lila MacLellan, Writer, Fortune; Lauren J. Mapp, Caregiving, Senior Care and Indigenous Communities Reporter, San Diego Union-Tribune.
Rounding out the Fellows are: Gail MarksJarvis, Author and Freelance; Brittany McGee, Reporter, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer; Kat McGowan, Freelance; Betsy McKay, Senior Writer, Wall Street Journal; Jaya Padmanabhan, Ethnic Media Services; Claire Perlman, Editor, Accessibility and Aging in Place, Wirecutter; Robert Powell, CFP, Editor & Publisher, Retirement Daily on TheStreet; Kathy Ritchie, Senior Field Correspondent, KJZZ News (Phoenix, AZ); Laura Rodríguez, Senior Journalist, Chicago Tribune; Christine Schiavo, Editor, Investigative Reporting Program, UC Berkeley; Carly Stern, Freelance; Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Communities Correspondent Dearborn/Detroit, PBS NewsHour; and Yiyan Zheng, Reporter, World Journal (Chinese language, New York).
Among the speakers will be Anne Basting, MacArthur “Genius” and author, Creative Care; Ai-jen Poo, direct care workers labor activist; and Susan Reinhard, AARP Public Policy Institute. Some participating journalists are Rich Eisenberg, MarketWatch “Unretirement” columnist and former managing editor at PBS Next Avenue; Author Chris Farrell, Marketplace economics correspondent; Kerry Hannon, senior columnist, Yahoo Finance; Carol Hymowitz, former editor, Bloomberg News and Wall Street Journal; Paula Span, the New York Times’ “New Old Age” columnist; and Julia Yarbough, founder, Keeping It Real Caregiving.
The Age Boom program is co-named for its late co-founders, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Robert N. Butler, MD, and longtime New York Times editor, Jack Rosenthal. GBONews thanks the Age Boom Academy’s Caitlin Hawke for sending us the list of fellows and for her fellowship in providing journalism education on aging.
2. THE STORYBOARD
*** “FDA Upends The Hearing Aid Market By Permitting Sales Of Non-Prescription Devices,” by Howard Gleckman, Forbes (Aug. 16, 2022):
The Lede: “After years of internal debate, the FDA has approved the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids. The move will make the devices available to consumers with mild to moderate hearing loss as soon as mid-October.”
The Nutshell: “The move not only could save a typical buyer several thousand dollars, it also opens the door to potential new technologies that could improve the quality of life for millions of older adults and others with hearing loss. . . . Companies such as Apple and Bose have been developing new products that will be less costly and, perhaps, more effective, than current devices.”
The Stats: “The new rule means US consumers will, for the first time, be able to buy hearing aids in a store or online without having to see a doctor or get a prescription. Roughly 37 million people in the US—more than 10 percent of the population—suffer from hearing loss. And nearly 30 million could benefit from hearing aids, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”
Out of Pocket: “A pair of prescription hearing aids can cost as much as $4,000 to $5,000. The devices are not covered by traditional Medicare or private insurance and only partially covered by Medicare Advantage managed care plans. Some experts predict the new over-the-counter aids will be priced at between $200 and $800.”
Eh?: “In a June report, the Senate sponsors of the original bill to give FDA authority to approve over-the-counter devices, conservative Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and liberal Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), called the hearing aid industry a near-monopoly.”
*** “Ex-Fox Sports Workers Sue Network for Age Discrimination,” by Winston Cho, Hollywood Reporter (Aug. 16, 2022): The Dek: “Nine former workers say Fox Sports used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretense to push out older workers.”
In a Nutshell: “The ex-workers are suing Fox Sports for age discrimination, alleging that the network used stay-at-home orders as a pretense to push them out. ‘Fox knew full well they were not calling back these older workers,’ states the complaint filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, which is embedded below. ‘Indeed, Plaintiffs are informed and believe that other employees were called back and/or hired for Plaintiffs’ jobs – the majority of whom were much younger. Yet, incredulously, Fox never notified Plaintiffs their careers were over.’ The plaintiffs range in age from 52 to 80. They worked in the graphics department.”
No Comment: “The plaintiffs allege age and disability discrimination, wrongful termination, intentional misrepresentation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Fox Sports did not respond to a request for comment.”
*** “Barbara Kruger’s NYC exhibits display new work and revisits old pieces in new contexts,” by Karen Michel, NPR Here & Now (Aug. 9, 2022):
“Artist Barbara Kruger is known for her provocative works including images and text addressing language and meaning. One example is her well-known piece “I SHOP THEREFORE I AM.” Kruger reworked some of her pieces and included new works with text from the web in exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art and the David ZwirnerGallery in New York City.”
*** “Ageism in Hollywood: ‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen It,’” by Richard Eisenberg, PBS Next Avenue (Aug. 3, 2022):
The Lede: In Next Avenue’s July 2021 article on Age Inclusion in Media (AIM), a nine-year-old nonprofit created to help end ageism in the TV and film industries, the group’s Executive Director David Gittins said its goal was ‘to make ourselves obsolete.’ One year later, Gittins now sadly says he thinks ageism in Hollywood is ‘the worst I’ve ever seen it.’”
The Nutshell: Recent research . . . confirms that despite some hit TV shows and films starring actors in their 60s, 70s and 80s (including Netflix’s “Grace and Frankie” created by Next Avenue Influencer in Aging Marta Kauffman and HBO Max’s “Hacks”), ageism and ageist tropes remain rampant on the big and small screens. A study of older actors by the retirement residence company Amica Senior Lifestyles found that ‘only 2% of top 2021 movies featured senior lead actors.’ (Amica defines “senior” as 60+.)”
What’s More: “A 2021 report from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media concluded that characters 50+ were ‘less than a quarter of all characters in top-grossing domestic films and most-popular television shows from 2010 to 2020.’ And they skewed male: men represented four out of five 50+ characters in film, three out of four in broadcast television and two of three in streaming TV. . . When women 50+ were on screen, it added, they were ‘commonly cast in supporting and minor roles’ and ‘less likely to be developed as characters in interesting ways.’”
A Quote: “In May 2022, more than 100 British actors and public figures — including David Tennant and Lesley Manville — signed an open letter calling for an end to the entertainment industry’s ‘entrenched’ ageism against women over 45. The letter, written and circulated by the activist group Acting Your Age Campaign, said women in the U.K. have a ‘shelf life’ on screen, but men have ‘a whole life.’ Entertainment writer Stephen Whitty put it this way in a recent article on the NJarts.net site: ‘Hollywood’s message is clear. Women get old. Men just get… older.’”
Really, You Want to Direct?: “Last year, when Yeshiva University business school professors Shu Han and S. Abraham Ravid documented the films made through 2018 by all US directors who started their careers between 1995 and 2015, they concluded “the probability of hiring drops by about a half, everything else equal, as a director ages from 40 to 55.”
And: “A 2020 Writers Guild of America report found that just 1% of TV writers at the supervising producer level or below were over 55.”
The United States of Ageism: “AIM ‘has been busy with a new social media initiative called “The United States of Ageism,” produced with The American Society on Aging. It collects examples of age discrimination and ageist actions from each state and posts them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (#USofAge).”
*** “Assaults on the ‘Gerontocracy’ Reek of Ageism — Creativity and Inventiveness Don’t Fade with Birthdays,” by Chris Farrell, MarketWatch (Aug. 4, 2022):
The Lede: “Have you noticed how many national political commentators are using the dismissive term “gerontocracy” these days? Gerontocracy is shorthand for stereotyping mostly Democratic Party leaders in their 70s and 80s as out of touch (they’re old) and in decline (they’re so old). . . The assumption is that because of their long political careers and advanced ages President Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership in Washington, D.C., are stuck in the remote past, wary of innovation, and fearful of change. Needed reforms aren’t possible. . . Yet chronological aging doesn’t say much about an individual and their abilities.”
A Quote: “We are ruled by a gerontocracy,” writes New York Times columnist Michele Goldberg in “Joe Biden Is Too Old to Be President Again.”
But: “The poster child of the gerontocracy is President Biden. What’s troubling is how little complaint there is about his performance. Many of his critics admire how his administration has managed the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Legislative achievements on his watch include the mammoth infrastructure bill; the Chips and Science Act passed by Congress that will boost U.S. semiconductor development and workforce training; the Inflation Reduction Act; and successful judicial appointments bringing greater diversity to the bench.”
Rock On: “Many artists are at their creative heights in their 60s, 70s and older. Think artists such as Faith Ringgold, age 91; David Hockney, age 85; Mick Jagger, age 79; and Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt, both age 72.”
A Quote: “’The fact that so many people are getting to experience old age, and doing so in better health, is one of society’s greatest achievements,’ writes Yale University social psychologist Becca Levy in her book, Breaking the Age Code. ‘It’s also an extraordinary opportunity to rethink what it means to grow old.’”
And: “’You don’t retire at 65 if you have 35 percent of your life left,’ writes Susan Wilner Golden, director of dciX at Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute at Stanford University and author of Stage (Not Age).”
*** “Finish Line: Work advice from boomers and the Silent Generation,” by Erica Pandey, Axios Finish Line (Aug. 24, 2022): The Dek: “Hundreds of Axios readers born in 1964 or earlier answered our call for wisdom and insights on navigating work and life.”
Why it matters: “These readers have lived through multiple wars, recessions, boom times and presidents. And we can all learn from their decades of experience.
The bottom line: “Carol I., a Silent Gen-er from Lansing, Michigan, put it best: “Don’t pay much attention to generational categories. Just be yourself, enjoy colleagues and friends of varying ages. Keep on caring and being compassionate with others, including the whole earth. You give me hope.”
That said . . . Axios Finish Line includes “the view from millennials and Gen X,” and sign up for the nightly newsletter “with tips, tricks and insights on life, work and wellness.”
3. THE BOOKMOBILE
The (Not So) Super Age, and the Joys of Gig Work for the Elder Economy
*** The Super Age: Decoding our Demographic Destiny, by Bradley Schurman, Harper Business (2022): Bradley Schurman’s The Super Age buffs the longevity future to the high sheen of a supermarket apple. His well-researched account of economic, technological and demographic advances, often against the headwinds of ageism, provides readers with a substantial survey of tomorrow’s unrealized financial potential. But those who bite into his “progressive, inclusive, and deliberate” alternatives through market-oriented approaches may be disappointed at his apple’s commercially bred sweetness and bland lack of public resources and protections.
To be clear, there is much to recommend in this book’s extensive overview of market innovations and strategies. It will provide reporters a worthy source of story tips and angles regarding private-sector strides in meeting emerging demographic challenges. These range from examples of creative product and service design to Schurman’s critical assessment of corporate America’s slow and often ageist response to their own need to embrace age-diversity in the workplace.
The book’s public policy analysis, though, merely wears the tasseled Oxford loafers of neoliberal economics: Spare your national budgets and apply today’s longevity gains to policies that maximize investment toward enabling the aging populations to work longer. Closing the economic-inequality gaps, such as by increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, or shoring up life in old age by through stronger social supports and regulations—say, to secure a decent income, affordable housing, and reliable health and long-term care–not so much.
While Schurman’s market-moored solutions fall shy of comprehensive prescriptions, The Super Age consistently presents thoughtful and realistic descriptions of demographic challenges and inventive tools that may help to solve them.
Aging Viewed from the Corner Office
Schurman is a demographic futurist, who’s research, design and consulting firm, The Super Age, serves international corporate clients., He is the former director of AARP’s Global Partnerships and Engagements program.
The book, he explains expansively, “examines the way two megatrends—declining birth rates and the radical extension of human life (longevity) are intersecting to form a super-megatrend that is creating a sharply different, vastly older and generationally diverse society than the one humanity has lived in before. This super-megatrend . . . is a seismic event that . . .is leading us into a new era that I call The Super Age.”
Schurman’s company website pitches potential clients, stating, “Bradley and his team help leading organizations harness the opportunities of increasingly older and generationally diverse populations through strategy development and execution. His insights inform national leaders and c-suite executives, as well as their teams around the world.” The “c-suites”? That’s business parlance for the occupant of the corner office: “c” is for chief. It’s worth quoting here because this subtext of his book offers reporters a CEO’s eye-view of the aging economy’s growth prospects from high in the glass tower.
His website assures his client base that Super-Agers “present one of the richest and most diverse consumer groups, but all too often the economic potential of the older population is sidelined in favor of marketing to the young, preventing many from tapping into the $20 billion global opportunity. Our team provides insights and strategies to help your business better understand the current and future market demographics.”
More Vibrant, Equitable Life Stages
Schurman’s messaging in The Super Age is appealing. He writes, “The thesis of this book: validate all people throughout all life stages in order to build a more vibrant and equitable society in which more individuals, businesses, and governments will win in the new demo- graphic reality of The Super Age.”
The book elaborates on ways of achieving that goal, such as, “ensuring that all people have digital access and digital literacy, as well as education and training throughout life.” As the aging population gains digital dexterity, especially with widespread smartphone access, commercial developments, such as online shopping, will help more older adults “feel comfortable with technology.”
Some positive changes, he expects, will derive from seniors themselves with the “growing number of entrepreneurs in the 55-to-64 age group.” Today, Schurman informs readers, “a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times as likely as a 30-year-old founder to create one of the highest-growth firms.”
Forthrightly, he addresses challenges, such as the transfer of legacy businesses from founders to the next generation. Boosting small enterprises and entrepreneurs, for instance, would be essential for increasingly aging rural communities, whose plight Schurman discusses sympathetically. For small businesses, he recommends the enlightened approach of forming co-ops, as a way to enhance the prospects those otherwise going it alone.
Work Long With Robotics
The Super Age calls on leaders to “pivot away from the dangerous ways of measuring success that brought us to where we are today, such as [Gross Domestic Product], and look toward new, more positive social goals, such as well-being.” Astutely, Schurman observes that instead of bemoaning the budgetary strain of their aging populations, America’s business leaders could see growth upward of 20 percent of GDP, if only they will “tackle ageism head-on and support age-friendly initiatives.” For this author, the road to well-being in old age runs “through direct financing and investment, tax incentives, and the creation of innovation districts to support longevity.”
His book proposes that such tweaks in economic policy, along with technological developments, may improve the prospects of those who are financially vulnerable. Citing the 2016 study by Cherrie Bucknor and Dean Baker of the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), Schurman notes their research “indicates that nearly half of workers over the age of 58 are engaged in physically demanding jobs.” He adds, “And it will be necessary to extend their working lives. Many of their jobs are in critical industries, such as delivery, construction, caregiving, and nursing, and a growing number of workers are forced to leave their good-paying jobs for lesser-paying ones simply because they are no longer physically able to do the job.”
Continuing their working lives, he says, lies with innovations, such as robotics by the company Cyberdyne, whose products “are assisting with this challenge by developing exoskeletons to ease the strain of repetitive labor and increase overall physical ‘strength.’ Another company, Innophys, has developed a backpack-like suit that can be ‘charged’ by squeezing a hand pump 30 times to fill pressurized air-powered ‘muscles.’”
Elsewhere, The Super Age, declares, “The gig economy is also proving to be fertile ground for older workers.” He quotes a 2019 survey showing that “54 percent of Uber drivers in the United States are over the age of 50, and about a quarter are 61 or older.” He adds, although these are considered jobs that are “low skilled or unremarkable, they are the ones that keep society humming along, and they are being held by a growing number of older people.”
Perhaps, he hasn’t talked to the many graying drivers we’ve spoken with in recent years about their aching backs, poor nutrition on the run, and stressful encounters as they hum along with difficult fares. Instead, Schurman sees in such work, “a preview of the new normal in the Super Age—a time when individuals such as you and me will be able to live, learn, and earn a lot longer than previous generations did.”
However important such technological and employment trends may be, Schurman cites the CEPR study to bolster his argument throughout The Super Age for private and government developments that will enable people to work longer.
Oddly, though, the book fails to note the CEPR report’s focus on the long-term strain endured by disproportionately impoverished Black, Latinx and other groups working in later life without such super prospects for retirement. In the same study, Bucknor and Baker emphasize, “A recurring theme in debates over Social Security policy is that workers should be encouraged to work later into their lives by raising the age at which they can get full benefits. Implicit in this argument is that most workers are in a situation where they would be able to work to an older age; however, many older workers stop working because they can no longer meet the physical demands of their job.”
Their study concludes, “From the standpoint of plans to increase the Social Security retirement age, these data indicate that many workers would face serious hardship by working later into their life. This is especially the case for racial and ethnic minorities, less educated workers and lower earners.”
Furthermore, a 2021 study in Ageing International examined existing research demonstrating that long-term exposure to “physically taxing, relatively simple, and/or limited intellectual challenge tend to result in a cumulative decline in intellectual functioning in old age.” The authors, led by Colorado State University sociologist Eunhee Choi, found, “Older workers with more physically demanding jobs tended to have poorer cognitive function.”
Curiously, Schurman’s book only mentions Social Security and Medicare as “massive government spending programs” that many fear “may not be there” in the future. And he refers to Medicaid only as a program whose inadequate funding has contributed to rural hospital closures. Hardly explored are decades of policy debates over strengthening, not cutting Social Security, or modernizing public health programs to cover family and community caregiving, such as President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill proposed to do–until social-care funding hit the US Senate wall this year.
Beyond the Buzzwords
Oddly, what evidently worries Schurman more prominently than America’s weak social supports for the wellbeing of older people? He writes, “If governments and businesses stand still, the current path presents an existential threat to economic growth and political stability.” The source of that threat—the potential for investment and national budgets to be impeded by international credit ratings agencies, such as Fitch and Standard & Poor, which can limit access to capital, such as from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund. For readers who may be confused about how government aid for its aged and poor relate Schurman’s dubious venture into existentialism, he explains, “Rating agencies look closely at debt incurred via social welfare programs, such as health care and pensions.”
Globally—and Schurman’s firm has international clients—the grip of credit-rating system has been highly controversial, particularly in imposing austerities on poor, often aging countries under pressure in hard times, such as during the Great Recession. Compelled to pay back billions in loans, nation’s like Greece strained to provide food and energy to their aging populations.
For the United States, Schurman treads lightly around policies that may not much appeal to those in those chiefs in the suites, such as taxing substantially more wealth to help close the inequality gap. And although he told one interviewer that he would favor increasing the Social Security’s full retirement age beyond the current 67, which would constitute an across-the-board cut in pensions, the book skirts that issue. While he regards such a measure “like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” Schurman doesn’t object to it. Instead, he recommends “better, more equitable, and more nuanced ways to approach the demographic challenge.”
He goes on, “I believe that businesses, especially large corporations, can play an oversized transformative role in making changes. Governments should financially support their citizens’ skill and career transitions throughout the life course, and businesses should work to make themselves as ergonomic and generationally friendly as possible, so that the contributions of each individual can be maximized for as long as possible.”
Yet, The Super Age doesn’t prescribe such societal measures as strengthening Social Security to protect older women, minorities and those most vulnerable in very old age. The book doesn’t address controlling overall health care costs, the real cause of excessive Medicare and Medicare budget growth. Absent is an examination of the need to increase affordable housing, funding of which has dwindled in federal spending for decades. Nor does The Super Age delve into many other gaps that cause those in developed economies to shake their heads at the United States’ failure to project its poor and middle-classes, much less apply its vast wealth toward optimizing our aging population’s confidence that one may live long and prosper.
Ostensibly, Schurman, like other business consultants in aging, champions changes enabling us to age with “dignity” and “purpose.” Yet, to be meaningful beyond the buzzwords of a corporate prospectus, those goals need to come–yes, with much of that great private-sector know-how and ingenuity he describes–but also in full partnership with the public power of a fairly taxed and equitable commonweal.
–Paul Kleyman
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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.
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