Fifteen US Reporters Win Fellowships to Deepen Coverage of Aging in America

The Gerontological Society of America and the Journalists Network on Generations have selected fifteen reporters from across the United States for the newest class of the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program, an initiative now in its seventeenth year. The fellows represent a deliberately broad cross-section of the American media landscape, spanning general audience publications, ethnic and community outlets, local newspapers, national magazines, and digital-only platforms. With this cohort, the program’s cumulative roster of participating reporters rises to 272, a figure that underscores how sustained philanthropic investment can build a specialized beat in an era when many newsrooms have cut dedicated science and health positions.

Selection was carried out by a panel composed of gerontological professionals and experienced editors, who evaluated candidates on the strength of their proposals for an in-depth story or series focused on aging. The winning pitches, which the fellows will produce during 2027, cover an unusually wide topical terrain: social isolation among older adults, the strains on the long-term care system, barriers to accessible health care, and the ways digital transformation is reshaping what it means to grow old in America. The breadth of the proposals reflects a recognition that aging is not a narrow medical subject but a lens through which economics, technology, climate, criminal justice, and family life can all be examined.

The individual projects illustrate that range in concrete terms. Zoe Beketova of The Xylom will investigate the cognitive consequences of growing old in isolation, using America’s aging prison population as a case study. Yvette Benavides of Texas Public Radio plans a series called Reading Together, exploring book clubs and healthy aging in San Antonio. Deborah Lynn Blumberg of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency will examine caregiving conflicts, religious rituals, and end-of-life care in a population she describes as getting older faster. Belinda Z. Burgos González of Public Health PR will report on how health, infrastructure, and social conditions shape the ability to age well in Puerto Rico, while Tina Charisma of the Roanoke Rambler will trace how digital transformation is changing everyday life across health care, government, transportation, and financial services.

Several fellows will focus on the intersection of aging and economic precarity. Sharon Donovan of Kentucky Health News will ask what it costs seniors and their family caregivers when home remains the preferred place to grow old. Max Erkiletian of SavingAdvice.com will investigate how predictive software is cutting off care in Medicare Advantage plans and how beneficiaries can win Medicare appeals, a topic that touches on the algorithmic tools increasingly used to authorize or deny medical services. Lorie Konish of CNBC will examine older adults caught in legal and legislative policy dilemmas and estate-planning challenges that threaten their ability to hold on to their homes and preserve family assets, with particular attention to low-income and racially diverse communities. Lara Nicholson of The Times-Picayune, The Advocate, and NOLA.com will report on senior housing and aging-in-place challenges in Louisiana’s densely populated Jefferson Parish.

Other projects extend the aging beat into environmental and intergenerational territory. Jordan Gass-Pooré of Inside Climate News will document the impacts of climate change on America’s aging farmers and ranchers, connecting demographic trends to the physical and economic risks of a warming countryside. Krys’tal Griffin of The News Journal and Delaware Online will explore how aging adults cope with the long-term care needs of their adult children, a reversal of the more familiar caregiving narrative. Amy Carlson Gustafson of MinnPost will chronicle how Minnesota’s older adults are embracing arts and culture and the health benefits that follow, while Alli Joseph of Salon.com will examine how America’s health care system has quietly shifted its most essential work to families under the framing that home is the new hospital.

Two fellows will take explicitly systemic views. Dawn Reiss, writing for Chicago Health and Caregiving Magazine, plans a series titled Closing the Age Gap in Health Care, asking how medical institutions and researchers can make health care more accessible, responsive, and effective for an aging population. Cari Shane of the USA Today Network will produce a series on needed changes in American culture, economics, and public health, including the medicalization of American society, cultural attitudes about aging, and how social and health systems could be reorganized for more widely affordable accessibility. Together, these projects demonstrate the editorial logic of the fellowship: rather than isolated features, the program aims to seed sustained, multi-part journalism that can shift public conversation about later life.

The new fellows will convene at the GSA 2026 Annual Scientific Meeting, scheduled for November 4 to 7 in National Harbor, Maryland. That gathering gives the journalists direct access to the latest peer-reviewed aging research and to approximately 4,000 expert attendees, including researchers, clinicians, educators, and policy specialists. The fellowship program will showcase research highlights from the meeting and other sources and will host discussions with veteran journalists about how to position aging stories in the current media environment, a practical concern at a time when attention economics and shrinking newsroom resources make specialized beats harder to sustain.

Leadership of the program is shared between Todd Kluss, GSA’s Director of Communications and Social Media, and Liz Seegert, an independent age-beat journalist who also serves as program coordinator for the fellowship’s media partner, the Journalists Network on Generations. Paul Kleyman, program co-founder and national coordinator of the Journalists Network on Generations, serves as senior advisor and editorial consultant. This structure pairs institutional scientific expertise with working journalistic experience, a design intended to help fellows translate gerontological research into accurate, compelling narratives for general audiences.

Financial support for the program comes from a coalition of foundations with long-standing interests in aging and health care quality, including the Silver Century Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Foundation, the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, and the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York, along with the Aging and Gerontology Programs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Individual donations from Betty F. Malks and John Migliaccio established a fellowship honoring the memory of Elizabeth Podnieks, an elder justice advocate and founder of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. In addition to the new cohort, continuing fellowship grants will allow several previous fellows to participate in the program and attend the GSA meeting, extending the investment made in earlier classes.

The program’s long-term output is substantial. A continuously updated list of more than 850 stories generated by the program’s alumni is available on GSA’s website, a body of work that has contributed to public understanding of Social Security, Medicare, caregiving, elder abuse, housing, and health disparities. The Gerontological Society of America, founded in 1945, is the oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization focused on aging, serving more than 6,000 members in over 50 countries and housing the National Academy on an Aging Society and the National Center to Reframe Aging. The Journalists Network on Generations, founded in 1993 and based in San Francisco, links more than 1,000 journalists, authors, and producers covering aging and publishes Generations Beat Online News. As the 2027 projects move from proposal to publication, the seventeenth class of fellows will add to that archive, testing whether deeply reported stories about isolation, care, climate, and technology can reshape how a rapidly aging nation understands its own future.

Subject of Research: A journalism fellowship program supporting in-depth media coverage of aging and gerontology

Article Title: 15 Journalists from across U.S. awarded aging-focused fellowships

Article References: 15 Journalists from across U.S. awarded aging-focused fellowships. (n.d.). Original publication

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Keywords: aging, journalism fellowships, Gerontological Society of America, Journalists Network on Generations, long-term care, social isolation, health care access, caregiving, Medicare Advantage, elder justice, senior housing, digital transformation