GBO NEWS: 22 Journalists in Aging Fellows at GSA Scientific Meeting in Tampa; Stanford’s Knight Fellowship Deadline; National Press Foundation’s 19 Fellows; Online Resources, Books for Reporters—Methuselah’s Zoo, Ageism Unmasked.
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
October 27, 2023 — Volume 30, 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. 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: Go Trickless–Treat Yourself to a Halloween Media Blackout.
1. 14th JOURNALISTS IN AGING FELLOWS MEET IN TAMPA: Our 15 New Fellows Plus 7 Continuing Fellows Named to Gather in Tampa at Gerontological Society of America Conference Nov. 8-12.
2. GOOD SOURCES: *** Benefits for Reporters Not Going to Tampa – “America’s Aging Demographics” Zoom Recording: *** Media Review eBooks Available for new paperback of Methuselah’s Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives, by Steven N. Austad, PhD, (MIT Press), and Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It by Tracey Gendron, PhD (Penguin/Steerforth).
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE:
*** Knight Journalism Fellowship Applications Open Nov. 1: The prestigious John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellowships, a 10-month live-in program at Stanford University will begin accepting submissions for the 2024-25 school year on Nov. 1, 2023, through Jan. 24, 2024.
*** National Press Foundation’s “America’s Long-Term Care Crisis” program hosted 19 Journalism Fellows in October with expert Zoom recordings now available.
1. 14th JOURNALISTS IN AGING FELLOWS MEET IN TAMPA
*** Journalists in Aging in Tampa: GBONews’s parent group, the Journalists Network on Generations Journalists, and our academic partner, the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) will host 22 Journalists in Aging Fellows in Tampa, Nov. 8-12, at GSA’s Annual Scientific Meeting. But GBONews readers don’t have to be a Fellow or even in Tampa to benefit from the hundreds of session and paper titles showing new research being presented at the conference. Those who are in the Tampa Bay area, can apply for a complimentary press badge at the GSA websitePress Room. (Be sure to enter the code PRESS23 when indicated to avoid being paid.) If you have questions, contact Todd Kluss at tkluss@geron.org.
Anyone can tap into the separate and searchable conference website to scan over the sessions, such as by speaker, each day’s schedule, or by dozens of topic areas in aging from “Acute Care” to “Workforce.” Important Tip – Click on the word “Schedule,” that is in white letters within the purple band under the “GSA 2023” logo.
All reporters covering he GSA meeting at the Tampa Convention are invited to a casual meet-up and Journalists Reception on Friday, Nov. 10. We’ll start at 5 p.m., where reporters will circle up to introduce themselves and find out who else is there. We’ll share thoughts about emerging issues on the generations beat. Then at 6 p.m., the focus will swing to tasty hot things, clinking wine glasses and all that chatter.
The list of 15 New Fellows appeared in the September GBONews, including their story project themes. Joining them will be seven past participants returning as Continuing Fellows who have just been announced. (See below). The program will start with daylong reporters-only workshop to feature a keynote talk by Tracey Genrdon, PhD, on her book, Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It.
Other sessions that day will cover the aging policy issues in the lead-up to the 2024 election and beyond. Among those on the opening panel titled, “The Truth About 80 – The Biological Facts, The Washington Agenda, Where Age Diversity Hits Home,” will be Steven N. Austad, PhD, author of Methuselah’s Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives (MIT Press, 2022, and just released in paperback).
Austad, a leading biologist on longevity, is Distinguished Professor and Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research at the University of Alabama. Interviewed recently by NPR’s “On the Media” (10 minutes) about the continual media references to President Joe Biden’s turning age 80, he addressed the unwarranted news attention to things such as Biden’s vocal gaffes and sometimes halting speech. Austad observed that Biden may have had “lapses in speech, but not lapses in reasoning.”
Also on panel will be Capitol Hill veteran, Brian W. Lindberg, who formerly served as staff on the House and Senate committees on Aging. And we’ll welcome Karon Phillips, PhD, MPH, Policy Development Manager of Trust for America’s Health. She will ground the hour with her insight into the policy challenges for American in creating age-friend communities.
Following that session will be “Beyond Election 2024: The Looming Crises of Retirement, Age Diversity and Eldercare,” with Cindy Hounsell, JD, Founder and President, Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER); Tam E. Perry, PhD, FGSA, Associate Professor, Wayne State University School of Social Work; and
Laura Mosqueda, MD, of USC’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and director, National Center on Elder Abuse. Mosqueda’s work is extensively featured in the new book, The Measure of Our Age: Navigating Care, Safety, Money & Meaning in Later Life, by MacArthur “genius” M.T. Connolly, who was the architect of the federal Elder Justice Act.
As ever, we’re grateful to this year’s nonprofit funders for helping us bring stories of the longevity revolution to so many audiences. This year’s funders includes the Silver Century Foundation, John A. Hartford Foundation, Archstone Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund and the NIHCM Foundation, plus a generous contribution from John Migliaccio.
*** Seven Selected as Continuing Fellows: Beside the 15 New Fellows chosen to attend this year’s Journalists in Aging Fellows Program, seven past participants will attend the program in Tampa as Continuing Fellows on travel grants provided by the program. They include:
Jatika Hudson, based in Atlanta, is a freelance journalist who has contributed to such outlest as Atlanta Voice, NAACP’s The Crisis Magazine, Atlanta Intown and others. She is currently the Secretary of Society of Professional Journalists, Georgia, board of directors.
Ronnie Lovler is a correspondent for Main Street Daily News in Gainesville, Fla., where she writes a monthly series, “Elder Matters.” A freelance writer, editor, researcher and Spanish-English translator, she’s formerly a correspondent and producer for CNN and CBS, where she reported from throughout Latin America.
Barbara Mantel is a freelance journalist and NBC News contributor. She also is the topic leader for freelancing at the Association of Health Care Journalists. She’s written for a wide range of media, such as AARP, Undark, CQ Researcher, Medical Economics, NPR and The New York Times.
Annie Nova is a personal finance reporter at CNBC, focusing on student debt, retirement, investing and career-related issues. She’s also contributed to WNYC, the New York Post and Money among others.
Annmarie Timmins co-founded the nonprofit New Hampshire Bulletin, a States Newsroom website following her 25-year career as a reporter and editor at the Concord Monitor. She has taught journalism at the University of New Hampshire and writing at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications. Among her honors, she’s been a jourbnalism fellow through Harvard’s Nieman Foundation, studying the intersection of the legal system and mental illness.
David Wahlberg, Health Reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, has won awards for his coverage of patient safety, rural health care, cancer treatments and other topics. He was a Fulbright scholar in Singapore, studying journalism.
Verónica Zaragovia is a health care reporter with WLRN, South Florida’s NPR affiliate. Previously, she spent four years reporting and teaching radio in Berlin, Germany, and was the state house and health care reporter at Austin, Texas NPR member station KUT.
2. GOOD SOURCES
*** Benefits for GBONews Readers Not Going to Tampa: The Journalists in Aging Fellows Program actually began with a Zoom presentation, Oct. 25, on the theme, “America’s Aging Spectrum: Demographic Impact Across the Map and Into Communities,” which GBONews readers may watch on YouTube. It begins with an authoritative overview of the 65+ population in the United States by GSA’s VP of Policy and Professional Affairs Patricia M. “Trish” D’Antonio. Following her talk, Jacqueline L. Angel, PhD, of the University of Texas, Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, focused how Texas and other states are managing their increasingly diverse aging population.
The demographic shift will be crucial in the coming years. The number of Americans age 65 and older is projected to nearly double from 52 million in 2018 to 95 million by 2060, and this age group’s share of the total population will rise from 17 percent to 23 percent — from one in six to nearly one in every four people.
If you tune in to this Zoom recording, note that the substantive presentation ends at exactly one hour. (You can skip the remaining 18 minutes, a discussion about fellowship logistics at the GSA conference, of little interest to others.)
Furthermore, older Americans are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. The Population Reference Bureau noted that by 2060, the share of non-Hispanic, white elders is projected to drop from 77% to 55%. These trends will affect issues of health care, housing, retirement, economic security and safety net programs, especially in certain regions of the U.S.
D’Antonio and Angel’s discussions are excellent, and we’ll be happy to pass along their contact information for reporters wishing to follow up for interviews. Just drop GBONews Editor Paul Kleyman a request for their contacts at pfkleyman@gmail.com.
*** Media Review eBooks are available for these books, including recent volumes by our Journalists in Aging Fellowship speakers:
* Methuselah’s Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives, by Steven N. Austad, PhD, (MIT Press, 2022): Request a copy of the new 2023 paperback or the digital edition from Katie Lewis (lewisk@mit.edu) at MIT Press.
* Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It by Tracey Gendron, PhD (Penguin/Steerforth 2022): For a digital press review copy, contact Anthony LaSasso (anthony@steerforth.com).
3. EYES ON THE PRIZE
*** Knight Journalism Fellowship Applications Open Nov. 1: The prestigious John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellowships, a 10-month program at Stanford University will begin accepting submissions for the 2024-25 school year on Nov. 1, 2023, through Jan. 24, 2024.
About 20 journalists will be selected from around the world, “who are able to step away from their professional obligations to focus full time on being a fellow on campus, exploring and testing ideas for addressing a problem in journalism,” according to their website.
This fellowship includes “a living stipend of $95,000, plus supplements to help with cost of rent and living expenses for individuals, couples, or families. The fellowship also covers the cost of Stanford tuition for fellows and Stanford health insurance for fellows, spouses and children. JSK staff help fellows find rental housing near campus.” For details see JSK’s “Become a Fellow” page. Follow @JSKstanford on Twitter for updates.
*** “America’s Long-Term Care Crisis” was a reporting fellowship program of the Fellowship National Press Foundation that hosted 19 journalists in Washington, D.C., Oct. 1-4, 2023. The four-day training featured leading researchers, policymakers, experts and advocates to guide coverage of such concerns as how COVID underscored and exacerbated the long-standing challenges that family caregivers and long-term care workers face; the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers, stemming from the RAISE Family Caregivers Act; and how Millennial and Generation Z caregivers are navigating intergenerational challenges. Sponsoring the fellowship was AARP.
Selected Fellows, who are listed below, attended 14 presentations now available with summaries and video links. Among the sessions was “Ai-Jen Poo: Caregiving ‘Became My Obsession’” with the MacArthur “genius”and head of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
The session titled, “Long-Term Care Insurance, Costs Need Journalists’ Attention: Keeping Score on Progress and Policies to Support Caregiving,” presented the Washington Post’s Michelle Singletary and SCAN Foundation President Sarita Mohanty, who urged journalists to demystify caregiving costs. Another was “Bracing for Impact: The Long-Term Care Crisis Unpacked: Our System is Messed Up. Our Caregivers Are Overburdened,” with AARP’s Debra Whitman and Susan Reinhard.
The 19 Fellows were: Clara Bates, The Missouri Independent; Marquita Brown, Freelance, Virginia; Ambar Castillo, Epicenter-NYC; Heidi de Marco, Freelance, California; Stephanie Dhue, CNBC, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Downard, Indiana Capital Chronicle, Indianapolis; Kate Giammarise, WESA Public Radio, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Jessie Hellmann, CQ Roll Call, Washington, D.C.; Liz Howard, WEAA, Baltimore Public Radio; Thomas Hughes, Bay City News, New York; Kerry Kavanaugh, WFXT-TV Boston; Nina Keck, Vermont Public (radio); Alex Lo, NBC News, New York; Sara Luterman, The 19th (independent newsroom), Washington, D.C.; Benita Mathew, USA Today Network, Wisconsin; Naydeline Mejia, Women’s Health, New York; Clavel Rangel, El Tiempo Latino, Florida; Ande Richards, NJ Advance Media, New Jersey; Kathy Ritchie, KJZZ News, Arizona; Emily Schabacker, Billings Gazette, Montana; Matt Sedensky, Associated Press, New York.
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 2023 JNG. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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