By Steve Moran

Senior living has become a major media punching bag. If you ask publishers and writers why they’re targeting our industry, they’ll claim they’re committed to righting wrongs, exposing injustices, and making the world a better place.

This is almost never true.

The Real Goal Behind the Headlines

The real goal is singular: drive more viewers to spend more time on their websites. More traffic means higher rankings and more revenue. Publishers have discovered that ugly stories about senior living are particularly effective traffic drivers.

They don’t care about the people they’re hurting — residents, team members, and families caught in the crossfire of their sensationalized stories.

The Most Recent Attack

In May 2025, an article titled “What’s Behind the Gilded Doors of Aegis Senior Living” appeared in The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative weekly. The piece purported to enumerate a long list of sins against older people, team members, and the public.

It was a scandalous hit piece that made Aegis and CEO Dwayne Clark look terrible. It was completely unfair, much of it untrue, or a gross misrepresentation of reality.

Fighting Back: A Lesson in Leadership

Recently, Aegis issued “An Open Letter from Aegis Living and Dwayne Clark, Setting the Record Straight.” There’s so much to unpack that’s critically important to our industry that I’ll be having Dwayne on Foresight TV for an open conversation about this attack and what’s really behind it.

But first, huge kudos to Dwayne and Aegis for responding. Too often, senior living leaders and organizations remain silent when under attack. I understand the sentiment — they don’t want to provide additional ammunition for future attacks.

But these media outlets are bullies. And bullies need to be confronted.

The Insidious Truth Revealed

This particular hit piece has layers that go far beyond typical senior living bashing. The Stranger is Seattle’s unabashedly liberal weekly alternative newspaper that’s even more specifically pro-union.

So pro-union, in fact, that they’re selling a stake in the paper to MLK Labor — a coalition of more than 150 unions, according to the Seattle Times.

It seems highly probable that this story was written and published specifically to help unions establish a presence in Aegis senior living communities.

The Pattern Emerges

Here’s what Dwayne revealed about union tactics:

  • They Target Industry Leaders Systematically: Unions pick the leader in every category, then use them as leverage against competitors. In Seattle, they’ve targeted Costco, Nordstrom, Starbucks, and Amazon using the same playbook.
  • Multiple Pressure Points: When strikes fail (Aegis employees refused to strike), and NLRB complaints stall, unions resort to intimidation through media attacks and purchased negative coverage.
  • The Numbers Tell the Story: After spending hundreds of thousands on billboards, protesters, and media campaigns over 2.5 years, the union has won exactly one building — with no contract. Meanwhile, Aegis maintains industry-leading satisfaction scores and was recently voted the #1 senior living property in America.

This Matters to Every Operator

This isn’t an Aegis problem — it’s an industry problem. Unions are using Aegis as the first domino, hoping other operators will capitulate rather than fight.

The strategy is working elsewhere. When operators see the resources unions will deploy — owned newspapers, hired protesters, coordinated media attacks — many choose the path of least resistance.

But silence isn’t protection. It’s surrender.

The Takeaway

The most important lesson from Aegis’s experience: transparency and truth are your best weapons. When Dwayne published his rebuttal, support flooded in from competitors, vendors, families, and employees.

Even the Seattle Times — just hours later — exposed The Stranger’s union ownership, confirming what many suspected about the hit piece’s true motivations.

As our industry faces increasing scrutiny, we need more leaders willing to stand up and fight back with facts, not retreat into silence.

The bullies are counting on our silence. It’s time to disappoint them.