Two different local audiences were told this weekend of the national divide, as seen by two great newspapers.
Margaret Sullivan is former editor of The Buffalo News and former public editor of The New York Times. She is now media columnist for The Washington Post. The local native spoke at D'Youville College's graduation Saturday.
Sullivan told the packed Kleinhans Music Hall crowd she saw the great national divide at the political party conventions last year.
"After coming to Washington, went to the two political conventions, in Philadelphia and Cleveland," Sullivan said. "And I was struck there, in both of those places, and have been struck ever since at what a terribly divided country we live in. It is upsetting and dispiriting."
Sullivan said the general public has lost the ability to listen to other sides of an issue and carry on a conversation.
"Best kinds of responses that I get to anything I write are when people say to me, 'I don't agree with you and I can tell my politics are different from yours, but I appreciate that you seem open to other points of view' and that's a great compliment," she said.
Also speaking Sunday was Williamsville native James Dao. Dao is Op-Ed editor of The New York Times. He spoke to a Common Ground session Sunday in Calvary Episcopal Church.
Dao said he sees this fraught society even in the hiring of a conservative columnist, a hiring blasted by some supporters of his newspaper.
"We think Bret Stephens is the kind of conservative voice that fits in with the mission of The New York Times," Dao said. "He's intelligent. He's an outstanding, lively, interesting writer. He makes cogent, coherent arguments from a conservative point of view and that is the mission of the Op-Ed Page."
Dao said the Op-Ed page represents a more varied point of view than in the paper's editorials, which are the official voice of The New York Times. He said reporters are not out to get anyone.
"They're trying to get the most important stories they can, confirmed and published and, then, you let the chips fall where they may," he said. "It's not their objectives to get Trump. I think this is a tumultuous time in our politics and the president is doing a lot of things that are absolutely newsworthy."
He said many criticisms of the paper's coverage of President Donald Trump can sound very familiar.
"People said the same thing about our coverage of Bill Clinton," Dao said. "They said we're just out to get get Clinton. 'Why are you so negative on Bill Clinton?' People complained that they felt we were critical of President Obama when they felt we should be nicer to him when he was under fire from conservatives."
Dao said many of the most controversial issues in the nation have been controversial for a while, issues like abortion, climate change and Israel.
