Work ageism is not getting any better, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands

September 9, 2026 — 9:01am

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A while back I had an idea I was genuinely excited about – good, well-formed, exactly the kind of thing I know about after many years in my work game. I put it forward. They loved it. “Yup, we must do it”, they enthused.

After a while, nothing came back. Not a no, just silence, which if you’ve worked long enough in any creative industry you learn to read as its own kind of answer. Anyway, months later, a version of it appeared anyway. Different names attached. Same essential idea, dressed up in slightly different clothes.

This isn’t a piece about being wronged – nobody owes me anything because I’ve been doing my stuff a long time – but that moment (and its cousins) told me something about having the ideas but then getting them implemented by a, did I say younger, model.

That got me thinking yet again about age bias which is real and not so subtle once you know what you’re looking at. I also remember when I was with a group of younger colleagues talking about our upcoming coverage of a huge event, one of which I had intimate knowledge. Instead of staring........

© The Sydney Morning Herald