A multimedia project from WOSU Public Media aims to help audiences navigate the complexities of elder care.
INSIDE: Caregiving launched in January with audio and video reporting that’s rolling out across the dual-service organization’s broadcast stations and digital platforms. It culminates Feb. 26 with a one-hour live town hall that originates from WOSU’s studio in Columbus, Ohio.
The project is the first to be funded through The Storytellers Trust, a new endowed fund that supports original WOSU programming for audiences in central Ohio.
WOSU’s Chief Content Director Mike Thompson described caregiving for the elderly as an underreported topic and an issue that increasingly affects more people. As members of the baby boom generation approach their 80s, they’re going to need help from caregivers in all kinds of settings, he said.
“We thought it was a great topic to just help people navigate this very complex world, process, finances, that kind of thing,” Thompson said.
“We didn’t want to get into a specific political topic or a very narrow arts topic or something like that,” Thompson said. “We wanted to find a topic that was important to a large portion of our population.” His team began planning the coverage in late July.
Thompson saw a need for more information about what caregiving entails — not only for older individuals, but for their families, friends and neighbors too.
According to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.7% of Ohio’s population is 65 years and older, which is higher than the 16.8% of this age group within the population of the U.S. as a whole.
Thompson noted that the number of people over age 80 is projected to increase by almost 80% in the next five years — a huge difference from the projection of 1% growth in the number of caregivers within the same time period.
INSIDE: Caregiving includes weekly reports airing on WOSU broadcasts of Morning Edition, stories posted on its news site and short video segments that air during program breaks of WOSU-TV. In addition, the daily radio talk show All Sides is producing five special episodes that are also being distributed as a podcast. Hosted by Amy Juravich, each episode of Untangled dives into a complicated topic and aims to make it more digestible to listeners. Episodes have also focused on the cost of caregiving, the complexities of healthcare insurance and disparities in caregiving.
The Feb. 26 town hall will be broadcast and streamed live. It features a panel of specialists including Chanda Wingo, the director of Franklin County Office on Aging; Dr. Tanya Gure, the section chief of Geriatrics at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center; and Michelle Messer, a family caregiver who described her experiences in the series.
The cross-platform strategy allows WOSU to leverage all of its channels and reach different audiences, Thompson said. It also allows staff to collaborate in new ways. “Each department is sort of working separately but together,” he said. “It’s been a great exercise in trying to break down some of those silos in our organization.”
“One of the reasons why we picked this topic is [because] it has a long tail,” Thompson added. Each story will live on WOSU’s digital platforms. “People can come back and look at it in six months or a year from now and be able to get that information.”
‘We know that you’re here’
Wingo, a participant in the town hall who also appeared on radio and video segments, sees INSIDE: Caregiving as an opportunity to raise awareness and advocate for caregivers. They often take on responsibilities of caring for loved ones without recognizing the significance of the role — or learning about the helpful resources that are available to them.
“Any time … when I was on a panel or doing a presentation, there is always one person who will come up to me after and say — ‘I’ve been caring for my 91-year-old mother for years and I realized through today’s conversation that I could be doing more,’” Wingo said. “It is very important to recognize our caregivers and let them know, like, ‘Hey, we know that you’re here.’”
She hopes that WOSU’s town hall event will help people to realize that aging is a community concern and that there is support for them to be successful caregivers.
The Storytellers Trust that provided funding for INSIDE: Caregiving is a new endowed fund supporting storytelling programs and projects.
“The fund is set up for WOSU to have the ability to tell stories about central Ohio and for central Ohio that need to be heard by our community members or about our community that others need to hear,” said Laura Baker, WOSU’s associate GM and chief advancement officer.
Ohio State University, WOSU’s licensee, provided funds to establish the endowed fund through its Office of Administration and Planning, according to Baker. It was a strategic investment to sustain original storytelling at WOSU and engage community donors to make gifts to the fund or establish their own named endowed fund within it.
The Storytellers Trust provides a consistent flow of money for WOSU to “forward plan” future projects with a dedicated pot of money, Baker said. Its total value as of June 2024 was $11,585,490.
“I think that’s one of the really exciting things about this, it’s really putting the trust in the public media entity to say we know the stories that need to be told and we’ve got the funding in hand to do it,” Baker said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story described the Storytellers Trust as a trust that supports local news coverage and programming. It is an endowed fund, not a trust, and supports original storytelling projects for broadcast and digital platforms, not local news coverage. The earlier version also referred to WOSU-FM’s daily talk show by the wrong title. It is All Sides, not All Things.