CNN Puts On Its Own Booking Executive to Explain Ramadan and Islamophobia
On Sunday morning, CNN featured Islam in its “Faces of Faith” segment in the 8 am hour. The guest who came on to describe Ramadan and how too many American Muslims don’t feel they are respected was…Maria Ebrahimji, CNN’s own Director of Network Booking. Apparently, Ebrahimji, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, has embraced her role as a Muslim advocate inside CNN: Her first job after college, in the late '90s, was rolling teleprompter for legendary CNN international anchor (and also Muslim) Riz Khan [who became an anchor at al-Jazeera English]. Since then, Maria has steadily ascended CNN's ranks. After 9/11, Maria was booking a who's who of Muslims and authors on Islam to explain and defend Islam to millions of viewers. Welcoming the challenge but often feeling like the token Muslim on the inside, Maria says, “It's a role I have embraced in the 12 years I have been with CNN.” On the website for her book compiling stories of Muslim-American women, Ebrahimji proclaimed: “As a member of the mainstream media, I am constantly exposed to the stereotyping of my faith, and continue to work in my own circles to advocate for distinctive reporting on Islam in addition to participating in conferences and panels to discuss media coverage of my faith. I am excited to use the knowledge I have gained in my profession to offer a new approach to presenting the public with a more candid and realistic idea of my life as a Muslim, and as an American woman.” Inside CNN, Ebrahimji serves on several boards : as Vice Chair of the CNN Diversity Council and on the Turner Broadcasting Corporate Responsibility Council and Green Task Force. The Sunday appearance was Ebrahimji's second on-air appearance this year. On May 8, she appeared in the same Sunday morning forum to promote her new book and decry an “otherness epidemic,” and anchor T.J. Holmes really went after American “ignorance” of Islam: T.J HOLMES: What has the reaction been when you see a story like that with these two Muslim men pulled off a plane, inexplicably, maybe we'll get some more answers, but we have seen these types of stories before. MARIA EBRAHIMJI: We absolutely have and every time a story like this comes up it's very troubling to me as an American-Muslim but also as a journalist. Because part of what we do is tell stories about other people and we tell stories about what we hope would be a culture of civility in our country. And I think what this shows is there's still a great amount of fear in America about my religion in particular. And I think it also speaks to this concept of what I call otherness epidemic. HOLMES: Yes. EBRAHIMJI: We always want to have this other person that we're looking to, to stereotype or to sort of alleviate the fears that we have, so we look to American Muslims as that… HOLMES: What can we get from this that — can this help us along quite frankly, because still that intolerance and frankly ignorance still exists ? EBRAHIMJI: Absolutely, I think Americans can get from this book what you would get from talking to your next door neighbor, right, a sense of appreciation about our back grounds, our history, our culture, but also the idea that all of us are just like you and me.
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on August 9, 2011. Filed under