DETROIT — Arab American activists met with Detroit News Publisher Jon Wolman and the paper’s managing editor, Gary Miles, on Tuesday, Aug. 11, demanding more positive coverage of the community. The community leaders also raised issues about a recent story in the paper headlined “FBI spy plane zeroes in on Dearborn.”

Civil rights lawyers, heads of organizations and prominent activists attended the meeting, held at The Arab American News.

Ali Hammoud, president of the Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC), said the News is the hometown’s newspaper, where Arab Americans should get a “home-field advantage.”

He urged the paper to cover the community through its organizations and highlight success stories, instead of focusing on the negatives. 

Nabih Ayad, chairman of the Arab American Civil Rights League, stressed the dangers of the growing hatred against Arabs and Muslims and asked the Detroit News’ editors to tell some of the “excellent stories” in the community.”

Representatives of the Arab community also asked Wolman and Miles to focus on small businesses in Detroit, civil rights and immigration.

Wolman said the Detroit News has opened its opinion pages to activists from the Arab and Muslim communities. Fatina Abdrabboh, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Michigan (ADC), and Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), have both appeared as guest columnists. 

Wolman added that the News has worked to dispel the myths about Arab Americans’ reluctance to condemn terrorism by including the community’s perspectives.

He said the paper is open to the community and does cover Arab Americans’ positive newsworthy stories, but acknowledged that more could be done. 

Arab American activists took issue with the Detroit News mentioning Dearborn in the headline of the story about the FBI spy plane that circled over several metro Detroit communities. They said it was unnecessary to put the spotlight on Arabs and Muslim Dearbornites when the plane had flown over other areas, too.

After the story came out last week, the FBI denied it was engaged in mass spying and stressed that it is not targeting the community.

Wolman explained that the purpose of the story was to reveal the FBI’s activities, not to further stigmatize Dearborn. 

Miles said it was a factual matter that the spy plane spent most of its flight time circling over Dearborn.