Palestinian American reporter alleges he was discriminated against
A Palestinian American television reporter who says he was fired from CBS News Detroit (WWJ-TV) has filed a lawsuit against the station, alleging he was discriminated and retaliated against after complaining about what he saw as a pro-Israel bias at the station.
The suit filed Thursday in federal court on behalf of Ibrahim Samra, 27, alleges the multimedia journalist was singled out by management over his social media posts and asked for his views on Hamas in the wake of the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He was also allegedly prevented from covering stories related to Dearborn, Michigan, or the war in Gaza during the conflict’s first three months.
Neither CBS Detroit nor its parent, Paramount Pictures, both named in the suit, immediately responded to requests for comment.
The station fired Samra on Feb. 28, after refusing to air a piece he produced on the “uncommitted” campaign that encouraged Michiganders to show their opposition to the war in the state’s recent Democratic presidential primary, the suit says.
He was told he was fired for his social media posts that “violated CBS news standards and policies,” his attorney, Amanda Ghannam, said.
“All Mr. Samra wanted to do was report on his local community and have the coverage be more balanced,” Ghannam told the Free Press.
A Chicago native, Samra was recruited to CBS Detroit in 2022 after a stint at WNDU-16 in South Bend, Indiana, the suit says.
Samra’s problems at the station began shortly after the war broke out, when the suit says he attempted to raise his concerns about a “bias” in coverage.
Its newscasts had prioritized local
Israeli perspectives over Arab ones, and non-Arab employees had been permitted to speak openly on and off air about living in Israel and to publicize their opinions about the war, the suit alleges.
At one point, a CBS news standards and practices official told Samra she took issue with all of his war-related Instagram video posts, the suit said. The account includes Samra’s own videos and reposted videos of antiwar demonstrations. The video his attorney says managers initially questioned him about – of a Chicago demonstration he attended while on leave for an ailing family member – “had not reported, analyzed, or offered any opinion.”
After the station “excluded” him from covering war-related stories, including one he pitched about a Livonia resident trapped in Gaza, the suit says Samra filed a formal complaint about his treatment and the station’s coverage.
A subsequent investigation by the station’s parent company found “that some of the concerns raised (by Samra) constituted missed opportunities as to news coverage,” but did not substantiate any company policy violations, according to a memo Ghannam shared with the Free Press.
He was fired shortly after complaining about the station’s refusal to run his story on the “vote uncommitted” campaign and posting it to his own social media channel.
In a letter he sent to station managers and included in the suit, Samra denied bias on his part in coverage of the campaign.