This story was edited on July 25 to correctly identify Shabina Khatri as the founder of the Muslim American Journalists Association.

By ANDREA CORNELIUS
The UNITY News

Before 9/11, stories in the mainstream media about Arab-Americans and Muslims were usually limited to feature stories about Ramadan.

Then, the Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon was attacked, and the Arab American community and Islam were thrust into the media glare.

The focus has not always produced accurate portrayals of the people or the religion, said Arab American journalists and activists. Instead, many stories perpetuate negative images of Arab Americans and Muslims, and paint a skewed portrait of both.

“Nobody knows who we are. They don’t understand the fundamental building blocks of Arab Americans. We are defined by political events,” said Ray Hanania of the National Arab American Journalists Association.

The stereotypes often begin with misconceptions about the Arab community, Arab American journalists and advocates said. Many people mistakenly believe all Arab Americans are Muslim.

In reality, most Arab Americans are Christian and the community is very diverse, advocates said.

“Many in the Arab communities are reluctant to talk to the media because they feel that anything they say will be portrayed negatively,” said Shabina Khatri, founder of the Muslim American Journalists Association.

Hanania believes the media portrayal of Arabs is uninformed and uneducated.

“It’s based on ignorance,” he said.

Sometimes mainstream journalists will interview experts, who may have a bias or agenda, rather than people within the Arab American or Muslim community, said Tamer El-Ghobashy, a criminal justice reporter with the New York Daily News and board member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association.

In addition, some Arab and Muslim journalists feel being identified as Arab or Muslim is a detriment, Hanania said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, membership in NAAJA organization dropped, Hanania said, with some journalists asking to have their names removed from the group’s Web site.

But some Arab-American journalists believe coverage of the community has improved after the attacks.

“The media has done a better job because they were forced to report after 9/11 and it got journalists into Arab communities,” said Tammy Audi of the Wall Street Journal’s Los Angeles bureau.

However, Audi said, “Arab communities feel that they are perceived as the one dimensional ‘angry Arab’ or the ‘angry Muslim.’ ”

The disparity unbalances the representation of Arab Americans in the news, said the Arab-American journalists interviewed.

But some steps are being taken to improve media coverage of Arab Americans.

Some organizations, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations, have created guidebooks for journalists on how to cover Arab Americans. A CAIR guidebook called “Beyond Stereotypes” provides basic information about the religion of Islam.

While helpful, these guidebooks are only about the fundamentals of Islam, which does not go hand-in-hand with being Arab, Hanania said.

Another possible step to improve coverage is to increase Arab and Muslim journalists in the newsroom.

Several newspapers, such as the Detroit Free Press, the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal, have been recruiting Arab American journalists. These publications have international reporting beats and Arab Americans who speak Arabic are valuable to their publications, said Joe Grimm, recruiter at the Detroit Free Press.

Two UNITY workshops this week will focus on coverage of Arab and Muslim communities. The first, “From Iraq to Iowa: Covering Arab Americans,” is 3 to 4:30 p.m. Friday in the convention center, room W471. The second, called “Uncovering Unconscious Bias to Improve Coverage of Race,” is 1:15 to 2:45 p.m. Saturday, room W176.