When Mary C. Curtis speaks at our Buffalo conference on June 22, she plans to discuss how opinion writers can approach sensitive issues – and deal with the reader reaction that follows.
Ms. Curtis is the perfect person to talk about that, because her Roll Call column and other media work often focus on “the intersection of politics, culture, and race,” as Mary described it in a March 15 phone interview. Those three topics can be fraught in any era, but are especially so in this polarized time of Trump.
Actually, Ms. Curtis said the response she gets to her writing is mostly positive, and she attributes this to several factors. “I try to put a lot of reporting in my column,” noted Mary, which makes it harder for spoiling-for-a fight readers to refute her points. “And I use humor when I can, and pop-culture references – including music and movie metaphors. Many readers can relate to that.”
