I see that the Government’s response to the consultation on its strategy paper Building a society for all ages includes a section on ageism in the media. About time too!

What are they going to do about it? Some 60 per cent of responses to the white paper included comments on the need to tackle media bias against older people. They can’t all be wrong.

We are all ageing, including newspaper editors. Still the clichés churn out however. In some papers, there is hardly a story about someone over 60 without sobriquets ranging from “granddad/grandma, to “old geezer”, being used to describe them.

Responses to the white paper commented on the need for the media to use presenters and images of all ages. Others reflected on the need for more intergenerational entertainment programmes, casting characters and aiming for audiences of all ages.

There is a lot that could be done. Older people should not all be portrayed as vulnerable and needy people either - some are, but plenty are not. Positive older role models should be used more – both celebrities and older people.

The Government’s response appears to recognise this. Now it’s time for some sensible dialogue with the media.

With several prominent older women media presenters being dropped in recent years, it is good to hear that some are finding their way back into work, Moira Stewart for example, has a news reading slot on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show as well as featuring in commercials pushing us to complete our tax returns. Nice work if you can get it!

The Older People in the Media Awards sponsored by the charity Counsel and Care seems an excellent idea. I am all for incentives and exemplars, though I wonder how seriously the awards are taken.

While on the subject of awards, readers will notice that the AARP International Innovative Employer Award (see above) are now open for entrants. TAEN is one of a number of organisations internationally partnering with the US-based AARP to promote the Award.

Our aim is to recognise innovative employment practices by employers with older employees. The list of good exemplars is becoming more impressive year by year. They really are showing what is possible.

Images of “old” in the public eye mesh with day to day experiences of older jobseekers.

The importance of attitudes surfaces when we consider the barriers people face returning to work after 50. Time and again the way one is seen by others is identified as the source of a problem. We really do have to challenge negative thinking.

That’s why I invariably spice up my presentations with stories of achievements of 50+ people. At the age of 50, Herman Hesse wrote the novel Steppenwolf. At 53 (despite being completely deaf) Beethoven completed his Ninth Symphony and Robert Peary reached the North Pole. At 55, Picasso completed his masterpiece Guernica. At 59, Einstein achieved a new result in the theory of relativity, while Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe. And so on… 

But negative attitudes of others mean 50+ people struggle three times longer than prime age workers to get jobs after redundancy. After a year out of work, with no one seeming interested in them, many older jobseekers give up looking.

For every new employment right, it is safe to say there will always be the odd chancer willing to have a go. Stories about a few gold diggers lodging multiple and dubious age discrimination claims are disturbing.

Such people deserve to get their fingers burnt, not least because they put the wind up employers and contribute towards a defensive attitude that will not help older people finding or remaining in work.

However, multiple claims are not necessarily the prerogative of the vexatious claimant. Some people get so many refusals to applications for jobs for which they are well qualified that they express their frustration in this way, and who can say they are wrong?

The outsider, particularly the late starter trying to get a foot on the ladder, may not get a look in. Such attitudes may underlie the “serial litigant” phenomenon. Surely, there is a better answer than to slug such cases out in the courts. Good employment policies can be a protection.

If employers want to fight vexatious litigants tooth and nail, that is fine. However, a mature entrant scheme providing a way in for the older person would be a good gesture and useful to cite against the troublesome litigator. It would also open access to a talent pool they may have ignored otherwise.