The Roses Shortlist

Barchester Healthcare and Independent Age are thrilled to announce this year’s full shortlist for the Roses Awards – a celebration of the best examples of coverage across all media concerning older people’s issues, from news reporting, through to photojournalism and the best portrayals of older people in films or TV drama. We’ll be announcing the winners at a glittering awards ceremony hosted by journalist and broadcaster, Janet Street-Porter on 8 November.

Please see below for a full shortlist of nominees for the Roses Awards.

The Awards will culminate in a special prize, the ‘Rose Hacker Award’ for the best overall contribution to the debate on older people’s issues.

Shortlist:

Category:

Best factual newspaper or magazine article about older people’s issues

Shortlist:

• Daily Telegraph: Seven Supplement: How to help the aged, by Paul Kendall
• The Guardian: The 91-year-old ping-pong champion, by Patrick Barkham
• The Guardian: Berlin’s oldest squatters in town defend threatened community, by Kate Connolly
• The Lady: Adventures in electric lady land, by Pamela Hill
• Stylist: Wise. Inspiring. Beautiful. So why are we so scared of getting old?
• Times 2: 50 ways to improve old age, by Kaya Burgess
• Times 2: Won’t give up the day job, by Daisy Greenwell
• Yours Magazine: The NHS needs more compassion not more money / Are you listening Mr Lansley? / Jury still out on hospital care by Joy Harris and Laura Bradder

Category:

Best factual radio programme about older people’s issues

Shortlist:

• Pure 107.8FM, Stockport: New Horizons
• BBC Radio 4: Woman’s Hour, grandparents special
• BBC Radio 4: You and Yours, dementia village
• BBC Radio 4: You and Yours, positive ageing
• BBC Radio Kent: Julia George, on caring/on planning for old age care/would you rather die than have dementia?

Category:

Best factual TV programme about older people’s issues

Shortlist:

• Channel 4: 24 Hours in A&E (Garden Productions)
• BBC1: When I Get Older
• BBC1: How to live beyond 100
• BBC1: The Town that Never Retired
• ITV Meridian: Happy 108th Birthday Lily

Category:

Best factual new media/social media content about older people’s issues

Shortlist:

• Alex Fox’s Blog: Shared Lives Plus
• Community Care: The Social Care Blog
• The Kings Fund Blog
• Joseph Rowntree Foundation Blog
• Social Care Insight, by Tony Butcher

Category:

Best coverage of issues around dementia and/or social care (Barchester special award)

Shortlist:

• BBC1: Panorama – Undercover: Elderly Care
• BBC2: Louis Theroux – Extreme Love: Dementia
• Tommy on Tour: One man’s mission to raise awareness of dementia (blog)
• The Independent: Dealing with dementia: “My dad was treated like lost luggage on a carousel,” by Arifa Akbar
• BBC Radio 4: Today – Adam Brimelow reports on a new approach to looking after people with severe dementia
• D4Dementia – dementia blog

Category:

Best provision of advice and information through the media to older people (Independent Age special award)

Shortlist:

• Mature Times: Granny is Dating – Get Over it, by Patricia Vine
• This is Money.co.uk: Care Cuts Spark Crisis for Elderly – 900,000 will miss out on support next year, by Jenny Hope
• Paul Lewis: Money blog
• Yours Magazine: Sharing the Caring – special feature looking into social care issues, by Rosie Sandall
• Daily Telegraph: Just How Ill do you have to be? by Emma Wall
• BBC Radio 4: Money Box Live, with Paul Lewis – Paying for Care
• Healthcare.co.uk

Category:

Best older person’s character in a film, TV or radio drama (Gransnet special award, voted on by the readers of Gransnet)

Shortlist:

• Michael Caine for Alfred in The Dark Knight Rises
• Judi Dench for Evelyn in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
• Judy Parfitt for Sister Monica Joan in Call The Midwife
• Maggie Smith for Violet, Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey
• Tom Wilkinson for Graham in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Category:

Best use of photography to illustrate older people’s issues

Shortlist:

• Fading Light: Portraits of Centenarians, book by Chris Steele-Perkins, published by McNidder and Grace
• Reflections: Elderly people as they see themselves, by Tom Hussey, published on the English Group blog
• The big picture: Happy at 100, by Karsten Thormaehlen, images published in the Guardian
• Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Better Life Campaign

Category:

‘The Thorn Award’: worst example of stereotyping, factual error or misleading information in the coverage of older people’s issues.

Shortlist:

• David Cameron vs Dennis Skinner: The Prime Minister advises the veteran MP to take his pension and on a separate occasion refers to him as a dinosaur
• Rowan Atkinson, for his letter to Radio 4’s The Media  Show suggesting that the creative industries should be exempt from age discrimination legislation
• David Birch, for his article, Cheque Mates, which appeared in Financial World Magazine