This year’s Women Center Leadership Conference kicked off not with a pep talk or career advice, but with a longtime journalist’s worried observations about the current state of the country.
“In my more than 50 years – yes, five decades – of reporting on American politics . . . I have never seen Americans as politically and personally divided as we are today,” PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Judy Woodruff told attendees of the conference, held April 6 at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner.
Woodruff described how since February 2023 she has traveled the country reporting for “America at a Crossroads,” an every-other-week series that tries to discern why Americans are so at loggerheads with each other.
Academic surveys have found that divisions over hot-button issues such as immigration, governmental spending and abortion have become sharper since the 1990s, Woodruff said. Views about people in opposite political parties also have “darkened significantly” in that period and even more so in the past few years, she said.
The pandemic also contributed to the problem and resulted in a growing subset of Americans who no longer trust the country’s healthcare system.
Round-the-clock news media, Internet and social media also exacerbate the situation by encouraging confirmation bias in people’s views and sometimes leading people to embrace conspiracy theories in lieu of fact-based, fact-checked reporting, Woodruff said.
Journalism also has skewed more toward opinion and “facts just get crowded out,” she said, adding, “There are days when I feel like, literally, a dinosaur.”
Woodruff lamented the loss of 2,500 U.S. newspapers over the past decade and worried about what that means for democracy.
The political system also contributes to the polarization by playing on people’s worst fears, rewarding partisanship and disincentivizing cooperation for the greater good, Woodruff said. Some political leaders demonize opponents as not only wrong, but deplorable or evil, she said.
“When we come to believe that the other side is not just poorly informed, but out to destroy the country, it’s a whole lot harder to imagine finding common ground,” she said.
She advised people to keep their heads about them, be rational, respect viewpoints other than their own and not just be civil, but also respectful.
“It is up to us,” she said. “We can’t wait for our leaders across the country.”
She quoted Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R): “It is un-American to hate other Americans.”
Woodruff also cited the late U.S. Rep. Silvio Conte (R-Mass.), who spoke at her adopted daughter’s 1990 naturalization ceremony.
“America is not perfect. We know that,” Conte had said then. “But it is special. It’s worth fighting for and it’s going to stay the special place that it is only if we, as American citizens, do our part to keep it that way.”
Woodruff also complimented the Women’s Center for its 50 years of service to the community.
“You have grown from a focus only on women to serving families, serving young adults, serving children [and] clients of all gender identity,” she said. “What a legacy to celebrate – and you’re just getting started.”
