ASA - American Society on Aging

1999 Awards Programs
Recognizing Excellence in the Field of Aging

Award Winners

1999 MEDIA AWARDS

NATIONAL LEVEL -- LONG-TERM ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Leonard J. Hansen

Durango, CO
Copley News Service

ASA on occasion will recognize a journalist whose work has consistently been a significant contribution to increasing general public awareness of aging issues. This year ASA is honored to recognize the work of Leonard Hansen with a Long-Term Achievement Award.

Leonard Hansen is a founder of the mature market newspaper field. He has specialized in writing to, for and about mature adults for 25 years. His "Mainly for Seniors" column is in its 14th year of weekly syndication to 200-plus newspapers by the Copley News Service. His body of work for this past year includes articles on retirement, caregivers, osteoporosis, financial planning, nutrition and fitness, Alzheimer's, telemarketing and mail fraud, and community service. Through his weekly column, he has encouraged others to pursue coverage of aging issues, improved the media's understanding of the current and future impact of an aging America, and increased public awareness of the life circumstances of older Americans.

Len founded the award-winning Senior World monthly newspapers in San Diego in 1973, and served as editor and publisher for 11 years, increasing the circulation from 60,000 to 200,000 copies each issue. His book, Life Begins at 50: A Handbook for Creative Retirement Planning, is in its 10th year of national sale.

He has received 72 journalism awards, including three National Press Foundation Fellowships. He is a 1999 Fellow with the Alicia Patterson Foundation. The foundation was established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson, editor and publisher of Newsday, to support independent projects of significant interest. Leonard Hansen will be doing an investigation of telephone, mail and Internet investment fraud of older adults.

Len's bachelor's degree is from San Francisco State University. He has taught broadcasting at San Francisco State, journalism at San Diego State University, and media and communications at Fort Lewis College.

In the Media Award Winners Symposium at ASA's 1999 Annual Meeting, Len discussed the changing and challenging scene of media and mature Americans.

NATIONAL LEVEL

John Wasik

Skokie, IL
Consumers Digest

In his article, "The Crisis in Long-Term Care," featured in the May/ June 1998 issue of Consumers Digest, John Wasik explored the many facets of the problem, including the increasing proportion of aged patients in the population, the climbing rate of Alzheimer's disease, the burden on family members, the high cost of long-term care, and the variation in quality of nursing home care. He also looked at Medicaid, support services, resources and alternatives to standard long-term care. He discussed health insurance for long-term care, financial aspects, and how to rate a nursing home.

He also explored what needs to be done on a national level, including reforming Medicaid to cover optional care, providing more support for the HCFA, creating more incentives for private savings and insurance for long-term care, increasing federal regulation of the long-term care insurance industry, and integrating long-term care and healthcare. To prepare this report, the author visited several facilities, examined reports of more than 17,000 facilities, and interviewed experts and state agencies in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia.

The report is comprehensive, readable, factually accurate and very informative. Consumers Digest is a widely read publication, with approximately 1.4 million paid circulation. This article informed a great number of Americans and created a real public impact. After the special report appeared, both President Clinton and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala held a White House press conference to announce numerous measures to increase enforcement of nursing home violations, echoing many of the findings and suggestions in the article.

In his Media Award Winners Symposium presentation at ASA's 1999 Annual Meeting, John Wasik discussed the difficulties in gathering and analyzing information on long-term care facilities and insurance.

Honorable Mention

Marilyn Gardner

Boston, MA
The Christian Science Monitor

In two entries, Marilyn Gardner addresses two complex issues that are undergoing profound changes: family caregiving and retirement. Finely executed, the pieces reached a large audience with memorable stories that shattered stereotypes.

The Page One story, "More Families Take Care of Elders Across the Miles," covered a subject infrequently treated by journalists: long-distance caregiving. As more families scatter, more caregivers find themselves shuttling between two cities to care for aging relatives. The effects on their careers, their spouses and children, their bank accounts, and their own well-being can be profound.

The five-part series, "New Outlooks on Retirement," showed that retirement is in the midst of a revolution. Although many retirement watchers predict that the most dramatic changes will come when baby boomers retire, the seeds of revolution are being quietly sown by the generation before them (people now in their 50s and early 60s). They have been called the silent generation and remain largely invisible in media coverage of retirement.

For many in this generation, old patterns of mobility that once drew retirees to Florida and Arizona are giving way to a preference for four-season climates. Similarly, old patterns of activity centered around golf and leisure are being replaced by more purposeful combinations of part-time work, continuing education and meaningful volunteer activities. These new expectations promise to give retirees fuller, more active lives, and to enrich those around them as they remain contributing members of their communities.

In her symposium remarks at ASA's 1999 Annual Meeting, Ms. Garner focused on the challenges and solutions in long-distance caregiving.

LOCAL/REGIONAL LEVEL

Maureen West

Phoenix, AZ
The Arizona Republic

Aging and retirement issues are regularly front-page news at The Arizona Republic through the work of Maureen West. Her dedication to aging issues has included extensive university research at Stanford as a Knight Fellow and regular attendance at national aging conferences. She methodically digs into the economic, demographic, social, physical, and mental health aspects of an aging population in the United States and the world. She recently traveled to Japan to study the effects of aging and reduced childbirth on that society, particularly in regard to the lessons that might be useful to America and other aging societies.

This year Ms. West is being honored for a superb body of work that reflects a depth and breadth of understanding that is a model for other journalist with interests in the age beat. Her well-researched and thoughtful stories usually run on the front page with color photographs. They connect on an emotional level with the readers, judging from the many reader responses.

Often, her stories break new ground. The Japan article, for example, she was the first in the nation to describe the demographic problems underneath Japan's economic woes. It was followed by similar articles in the New York Times and elsewhere. She wrote about John Glenn's probable space flight a full six months before the NASA announcement, thanks to her contacts in aging health research.

Through a continuing series of articles on end-of-life care, a conversation has been started in Arizona about how people's final days can be improved. She organized an entire Sunday opinions section on that topic, writing an opinion piece and the editorial, and finding contributing writers. The following Sunday, an entire page was devoted to letters from readers sharing their own experiences.

Because Arizona is home to many retired people, The Arizona Republic has an opportunity to provide informative and stimulating coverage of aging issues. Ms. West's 25 years as a thoughtful editor and reporter and her total dedication to aging issues has made for a winning combination in Arizona. She created the age beat at The Arizona Republic.

In her Symposium at ASA's 1999 Annual Meeting, Ms. West addressed how one reporter convinced her editors that the paper could make an important contribution to the coverage of aging.

Honorable Mention

John A. Cutter

St. Petersburg, FL
St. Petersburg Times

John Cutter's entry included two articles on driving as well as a piece on Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of On Death and Dying. In these articles, John Cutter exemplifies excellence in writing, a thorough knowledge of his subject matter and a sensitivity that brings the people and issues alive for the reader.

The driving articles arose because of a continuing concern in Florida over older drivers and a growing body of research about them. Cutter wanted to show a few things he thought were missing from the discussions: What does driving mean, socially and emotionally to an older person; what do you do if you can no longer drive; and how bad-or good-are older adults behind the wheel and why? He was looking to shatter some stereotypes, which were captured in the first few graphs of the story, "The Keys to Freedom." Readers came to understand that driving is about more than mobility, it also is about how people feel about themselves and their aging-a topic seldom addressed in media depictions of the "older driver problem."

After the stories appeared, agencies reported an increase in calls for courses like 55 Alive/Mature Driving and for volunteer rides. Although the Florida Legislature never took up the testing issue in great detail in the past, there was renewed interest after the series appeared.

Like the driving series, the purpose of the Kubler-Ross story was to provide insight into a topic many of us think we know well-in this case, death and dying. Facing her own death, the story was a way to make people understand that this debate started long before Dr. Kevorkian. For readers to see Dr. Ross struggling with her disability and her apparent desire to die perhaps helped them look at the complex issues surrounding death, dying and assisted suicide in a different way, in shades of gray rather than in black or white.

John is founding member of the Journalists Exchange on Aging. He recently left the St. Petersburg Times to become a full-time freelance writer. His first assignment is a book for Scribner on human diseases and conditions. He is finishing his master's degree in gerontology at the University of South Florida in Tampa.