|
This is the concluding part (or part 2) of our interview with Ronni Bennett. Last week we published part 1 of the interview. Since we published part 1 of the interview, some unexpected changes have taken place. Ronni has decided to shut down TGB (Time Goes By) - her blog for various reasons listed on her blog site and her loyal readers, which are many, are pleading her to reconsider. We sure wish she’d reconsider and continue TGB as well, as we admire her work there and feel sad to see Ronni and TGB go from the blogosphere. At the same time, if this is best for her, then we respect her decision.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Ronni for her thoughts and suggestions regarding Boomer411 and also for introducing us to her loyal readers. We feel privileged.
Although some of the interview answers below might have changed in meaning in light of this development, we decided to publish it in its original form. So without much ado, here goes…
Boomer411: CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE SOME BACKGROUND ABOUT HOW YOU STARTED WITH THE BLOG?
Ronni: Sure. Let me tell you a story:
In 1996, when I was working at the first CBS-TV website, cbsnews.com, I looked up from my computer screen one day in search of one of the writers I needed to speak with. As I glanced over the room filled with about 25 people, it struck me hard – I was 55 years old then – that I was the oldest kid in the crowd. By decades.
Since teen years, I had thought of myself as I had been then, usually the youngest kid in the crowd, and I blithely sailed through the next 30-plus years without changing that definition of myself.
So it was a shock to notice for the first time that I was undoubtedly on the downhill side of life and I wondered what getting old would be like; I had no idea what to expect.
And so I spent most of my free time during the next seven or eight years researching aging. In popular magazines and newspapers, books, scientific research papers, medical journals and other sources, the answer was 95 percent awful. According to everyone, getting old was an overwhelmingly negative experience.
By the time I had accumulated overflowing stacks of reports and books along with a thousand pages of notes in 2003, blogs (a phenomenon I had been closely following) were taking off. So I started Time Goes By initially as a place to organize and think out loud about all the research I had been collecting.
I’m no fool and I had no expectation that many people would read a blog about getting old, but I knew that writing publicly would keep me journalistically honest. Now, four years later, I’m astonished at how much readership has grown and more important, what a smart, lively, engaging community has built up around the blog.
Boomer411: WHY DO YOU USE THE WORD “ELDERS” ON YOUR BLOG INSTEAD OF “SENIORS”, “MATURES”, OR OTHER TERMS FOR OLD PEOPLE?
Ronni: This was a deliberate and important choice. Because ageism is so widely prevalent and worse, unacknowledged as an equivalent of sexism and racism, when I started Time Goes By I determined that none of the negative words for old would be used or tolerated. Coot, biddy, old fart, etc. were banned along with – to a lesser extent – senior and senior citizen, because there is the scent of the institutional about the last two from overuse.
So for the first year, I substituted “old” and “older” for all those words, trying to nudge them toward being a neutral descriptive.
When a panel I was co-hosting at the 2005 SXSWi conference was named “Respect Your Elderbloggers”, it was an Aha! moment for me. Elder is a venerable word that had been consigned for decades to describe only tribal old people and church leaders. It was time, I believed, to resurrect it as a respectful description of anyone who could otherwise be labeled old which, aside from antiques, is almost always pejorative.
There was resistance at first, even from some Time Goes By readers. But I browbeat a New York Times reporter into using elderblogger when I was interviewed and insist on it now in every context from my blog to conference appearances and other interviews.
Now I see elder and elderblogging popping up all over the internet and in some mainstream media. The word elder carries no negative baggage and can help improve the status of old people.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here is her latest post regarding this subject.
Boomer411: WHAT KIND OF PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND DO YOU HAVE? HOW DOES IT INFLUENCE YOUR BLOG?
Ronni: My entire career was spent in media. In the earliest years, I produced radio talk shows in several cities including, eventually, New York City, back when they were still conversations and before they became right-wing shouting matches. Then I moved on to television where, over the next couple of decades, I produced for such programs as 20/20 and The Barbara Walters Specials.
In 1995, I was offered the opportunity to switch to the internet when the commercial web was in its infancy, first as managing editor of cbsnews.com and later for other websites until someone determined in 2004, that I am too old.
My radio, television and web background influence Time Goes By every day. As much as I knew aging was not an issue most people cared to read about when I started the blog (that is changing a bit now that the boomers are getting old), I’m not without ego and wanted to increase readership as much as possible. Years of producing shows that get canceled if the ratings don’t hold up taught me techniques of building audience that can be applied to a blog.
Plus, ten years of working on websites gave me a thorough understanding of how to build a well-designed site that draws people in. And I use all my journalistic training every day in reporting and writing as fairly and accurately as I can.
Boomer411: SHOULD BOOMERS WHO ARE ABOUT TO RETIRE BE THINKING ABOUT THE ISSUES THAT WOULD MATTER TO THEM WHEN THEY RETIRE?
Ronni: Of course. There are the practical issues I mentioned above, but one of the surprises I’ve encountered is that there is not, for me at least, a sharp dividing line between life before and after retirement. (If all 75 percent of boomers who say in surveys they will continue working beyond traditional retirement age really do so - I doubt it - there is hardly retirement at all.)
But even without a salaried job, who you are doesn’t change. The interests you had before retirement continue, but you may have more time to pursue them. If reading mystery novels was a pleasure before, it continues. If you were a gym rat before, that won’t stop.
Because American culture so adores youth to the exclusion of age, I think there is an idea, hardly articulated among us, that to retire is to enter another, less colorful country where we become different from what we were - less interesting and interested. That is wrong.
However, surveys show that retired women are much more likely than men to not only continue past interests, but to take up new ones. Men, according to surveys, appear to miss the status of their work life more than women do and that is something boomer men should consider and find a way to deal with before retirement.
This concludes our interview with Ronni Bennett. Please post your feedback/comments.
We love you Ronni and wish you all the Best in whatever you choose to do next.
|
