“Gray Matters” Moves from Newsday to Time Goes By

Regular Time Goes By readers know the twice-monthly Reflections column written by 80-year-old, veteran journalist, Saul Friedman (Bio here). Reflections has become one of the most popular features on Time Goes By.

Today I am pleased to announce there will be more of Saul's work in a regular Saturday column titled Gray Matters which, until a week ago, had appeared in the Long Island paper, Newsday, for the past 12 years.

Saul made news early this week announcing that he had severed his relationship with Newsday when Cablevision, which owns the paper, placed the online edition behind a paid firewall allowing free access only to people who subscribe to the print edition or to Cablevision. Others pay $5 a week.

The policy shift meant that not only would Saul's many readers throughout the country lose access to his popular column, even he, living near Washington, D.C. and not a Cablevision subscriber, would be locked out.

In an email, Saul explained further:

“About a dozen years ago, when my aging legs were giving out after more than 40 years of covering cops and crooks, presidents and wars, I founded what has become a unique enterprise, a column that serves as a survival guide for those of us of a certain age.

“I called it Gray Matters, which is a deliberate triple entendre. (You figure it out). It was and is still the only column of its kind, for it sought to explain, report on and probe the nitty gritty of virtually every issue confronting people over 50 - and their care givers. And it was designed to provide help in negotiating the thickets of Medicare, Medicaid, Long Term Care, IRAs, Social Security.

“I have been an unabashed, unapologetic advocate for America’s still inadequate Social Insurance programs. I’ve used my sources to get help for readers. And from time to time I’ve dispensed advice, always based on expertise. But because aging is not just about Medicare and Medicaid, as Time Goes By has demonstrated, no subject is out of bounds.

“The column has been published in Newsday, for which I had worked as a reporter for a dozen years before I took a buyout. And Newsday has generously supported the column since 1997. But alas, like so much of the newspaper business, Newsday has undergone changes, for better or worse.

“As a result, Gray Matters is moving to Time Goes By and will appear each Saturday, supplementing with some timely reporting the wit and wisdom of its writers. In addition, because it will give me a chance to search my mind and memory for the lessons I’ve learned in a most exciting, action-packed half-century of journalism, I shall continue to contribute my Reflections.”

What Saul did not mention is that during those 40 years of "covering cops and crooks, presidents and war," he received a Pulitzer Prize for his part in coverage of the 1967 Detroit riots, is a Nieman Fellow and has the distinction of being among the journalists and others targeted by the White House on Richard Nixon's infamous Enemies List. (For some of us of a certain era, that may be his most distinguished award.)

I'm pretty sure there is nothing around that could be a better fit with the goals of Time Goes By than Saul's Gray Matters column and I am proud to host it here. Be sure to stop by for his first column tomorrow and each Saturday thereafter.

Vintage TGB, which Gray Matters replaces, will appear occasionally in the future on weekdays.

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At The Elder Storytelling Place today, Ann Berger: Sharing My Birthday Pony