Senior News
April, 2001
Vol. 20. No.  4

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

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20 Years of Senior News: Dreaming the dream that started us

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20 Years of Senior News
Dreaming the dream that started us
by Yvonne Baginski

In 1981, I was 25-years-old, new to Humboldt and couldn't imagine working for the Times- Standard for a paltry $700 a month. Instead, I took on a temporary job at the Senior Resource Center on Edgewood Drive. The job was adding up statistics of phone calls coming in on their information and referral line. The job paid $5 an hour and bored me to tears. Jenny Smith, who was coordinating home care aides, told me of a higher paying job. I could clean house for Mrs. Eisenberg, who'd just had a new baby. That job paid $8 an hour. I took it. It lasted three days.

Senior News was birthed out of desperation to make an income in a community where jobs were scarce and the pay was low. The idea of a senior newspaper wasn't original. I had lived in Sacramento and a similar newspaper had existed there for years. But, I thought we could do it a different way in Eureka. I walked down my street to visit a neighbor, Sheila Forbes. Her expertise was typesetting and advertising sales. We talked and measured out a plan. Then, we had a talk with Carol Baker, Information and Referral manager at the Senior Resource Center. She thought Senior News would be great. "Let's write out a proposal and talk to Anne Weiss (SRC executive director)."

The original goal of Senior News was to integrate all the newsletters and information needs of all the human service providers needing to reach the senior market. In the first issue, everybody had to buy the space, including editorial. The only exception was the lunch site calendar and Anne Weiss' editorial, Life in Prime Time. We sold ads at $5 an inch. Our first issue was four pages. The mailout was to almost 5,000 people.

We were proud of the first issues, and as the paper grew with advertising support, we stopped charging for editorial space. People wanted regular columns. Bill Landis wrote Prowling and Growling. We started up a Gray Panthers of the Northcoast. Controversy reigned when we inserted a chart comparing drug and supplemental insurance costs. There were arguments over editorial content. We weren't sure how to classify this endeavor-were we an actual newspaper, or a newsletter of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center?

Sheila Forbes left the partnership after about a year. Then I ran the paper for awhile on my own. I remember selling ads, writing editorial, taking pictures, pasting up and sending out the bills at the end of each month. My salary was about $600 a month. Sometimes, if ad sales were down, it was less.

Senior News never broke a story or covered any controversial issues. I remember one story where I visited a woman who was living in a rundown motel in a room where rats were rampant. I wrote that story, but I edited and fixed it so that the senior center personnel came out as heroes. That was one reason why Senior News was never "really a newspaper." There was no independent editorial. It was always controlled by the senior center staff, ever watchful and savvy of their public relations protocol. That, I recall, was the biggest stickler for me. Being a journalist, I wanted more balanced reporting-more investigation and license to dig into issues of truth and justice in our community.

In the five years I ran the newspaper, I don't think I ever felt it was interesting enough to read. We plugged it with canned stories, rewrites of press releases and announcements of events to come. There were occasional features and columns, but nothing that stirred the blood with a passion to make a difference. During the last 15 years, I have come to realize that the most important part of newspapering is the pursuit of truth, justice and helping to build a better world.

Now I live in Napa and write a column, "Born To Age," for the Saturday edition of the Napa Valley Register. My focus is always on seniors (now called "elders"), and it's been a career fraught with controversy and movement. Last year, I started an Elder Advocates group, with the goal of making a difference in how we care for each other through time. As I get closer to the classification of being old, I want to make sure that what I saw 20 years ago will have somehow been transformed into a better world for us all.

Periodically, I've toyed with the idea of starting another senior newspaper. This time I'd put in a dating/relationship service, a column on nursing home violations and complaints, want ads for caregivers, and I'd have more seniors writing and reporting. I've also thought what my life would have been like if I never started Senior News.

When I got the call from current Senior News editor Barbara Clark saying that it was the 20th year anniversary of Senior News, I was surprised. It made me look back and think of a different time, place and experience.

We are grateful to Yvonne Baginski of Napa for starting us! Her e-mail is borntoage@hotmail.com.