Auto industry cited in Al Jazeera’s decision to open Detroit bureauI

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http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130412/AUTO01/304120359#ixzz2QLpLwcI4

April 12, 2013 at 11:58 am

Auto industry cited in Al Jazeera’s decision to open Detroit bureau

  • By Oralandar Brand-Williams
  • The Detroit News

Detroit — Al Jazeera, the Arab-owned international cable and Internet broadcast network, plans to open a news bureau in Detroit, a spokesman for the network’s new broadcast channel said Thursday.

The new channel will be called Al Jazeera America and Detroit will among 12 cities across the country where the new channel will have bureaus.

“We expect the channel to be up and operating by September,” said Stan Collender, a spokesman for Al Jazeera America.

Collender said Metro Detroit’s demographics — the region has one of the largest concentrations of Arabs and Muslims outside the Middle East — did not play a role in its choice as an Al Jazeera bureau.

Collender said the city was selected because it is home to the U.S. auto industry.

“We couldn’t cover the Midwest and the base of the auto industry without being in Detroit,” Collender said Thursday. “The city is still too important to news about the economic recovery of the auto industry. We wanted to be on the ground there.”

Collender said the channel will target American audiences and will carry news directed at “all Americans … all demographics … all ages.”

“It will not be a channel about Arab Americans,” said Collender.

But the news of a local Al Jazeera bureau has still created a lot of buzz in the Metro Detroit’s Arab American and Muslim communities.

“It’s a great thing for the Detroit community and for this region, which has the largest concentration of Arabs outside the Middle East,” said Hassan Jaber, executive director of ACCESS, the Arab community center.

“And it’s an amazing thing for the local Arab American community, too, which has already been turning to Al Jazeera for international news. It will give them closer access to this news outlet, and a greater opportunity to stay in tune with what is going on in their local community.”

Collender said the network will not ignore news about the local Arab American and Muslim communities but, “we’re not going to be focusing on it.”

Detailed plans for the bureau are expected to be announced May 2 at a Detroit Economic Club luncheon. About 200 people are expected to work at the 12 bureaus. Collender said the location of the bureau has not yet been determined but the office will be in Detroit. He said the number of reporters, writers and producers is still being worked out.

Al Jazeera America has received about 21,000 resumes from people hoping to snag a job at one of the bureaus, Collender said.

Since the late 1990s, Al Jazeera has gained popularity with American viewers for its coverage of developments and other news events in the Middle East.

During the Arab Spring uprisings in several Middle East nations, Al Jazeera was a primary source of information and news for television and Internet viewers around the world.

Al Jazeera, which once broadcast mostly in Arabic, now has an English-speaking partner called Al Jazeera English, which might also pick up some of the Detroit stories from Al Jazeera America, said Collender.

The network, which has 70 bureaus around the world, has drawn fire from critics who argue that it lacks independence; some have called it a propaganda tool for terrorists.

Robert Cohen, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, added:” It will be interesting to see how Al Jazeera covers the news. We know that some distinguished American journalists have left the organization citing a lack of objectivity by the network.”

Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he’s pleased the network is coming to Detroit.

“It makes sense that Al Jazeera would open an office in Detroit given this metro area being the epicenter for Arabs and Muslims in America,” Walid said Thursday. “I’ve been in communication with Al Jazeera for years and have already given them story ideas regarding our region.”

DawudWalid

Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), which is a chapter of America's largest advocacy and civil liberties organization for American Muslims and is a member of the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC) Imams Committee. Walid has been interviewed and quoted in approximately 150 media outlets ranging from the New York Times, Wall St Journal, National Public Radio, CNN, BBC, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. Furthermore, Walid was a political blogger for the Detroit News from January 2014 to January 2016, has had essays published in the 2012 book All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim, the 2014 book Qur'an in Conversation and was quoted as an expert in 13 additional books and academic dissertations. He was also a featured character in the 2013 HBO documentary "The Education of Mohammad Hussein." Walid has lectured at over 50 institutions of higher learning about Islam, interfaith dialogue and social justice including at Harvard University, DePaul University and the University of the Virgin Islands - St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses as well as spoken at the 2008 and 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Conventions alongside prominent speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congressman Keith Ellison. In 2008, Walid delivered the closing benediction at the historic 52nd Michigan Electoral College in the Michigan State Senate chambers and gave the Baccalaureate speech for graduates of the prestigious Cranbrook-Kingswood Academy located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Walid was also a featured speaker at the 2009 and 2010 Malian Peace and Tolerance Conferences at the University of Bamako in Mali, West Africa. He has also given testimony at hearings and briefings in front of Michigan state legislators and U.S. congressional representatives, including speaking before members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington, D.C. Walid has studied under qualified scholars the disciplines of Arabic grammar and morphology, foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, sciences of the exegesis of the Qur’an, and Islamic history during the era of Prophet Muhammad through the governments of the first 5 caliphs. He previously served as an imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and the Bosnian American Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, and continues to deliver sermons and lectures at Islamic centers across the United States and Canada. Walid was a 2011 - 2012 fellow of the University of Southern California (USC) American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute (AMCLI) and a 2014 - 2015 fellow of the Wayne State Law School Detroit Action Equity Lab (DEAL). Walid served in the United States Navy under honorable conditions earning two United States Navy & Marine Corp Achievement medals while deployed abroad. He has also received awards of recognition from the city councils of Detroit and Hamtramck and from the Mayor of Lansing as well as a number of other religious and community organizations.

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