Ibrahim Samra has sued Detroit CBS-owned station WWJ after he said he was fired after filing complaints about discriminatory treatment and what he saw as biased coverage of the war in Gaza.
Samra filed the lawsuit Wednesday, March 20, accusing the station of treating him “differently” following the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war and subjecting him to “offensive and inflammatory accusations,” including calling his coverage “one-sided.”
He said he was fired on February 28, shortly after the station wouldn’t air his report about the campaign to urge “uncommitted” votes in the Michigan Democratic primary to protest the Biden White House’s funding of the Israeli government.
A CBS spokesperson told TVSpy, “We strongly disagree with the characterization of these events and will address this more fully through the proper legal channels. Beyond this, we will not comment on specific employee matters.”
Samra was hired in 2022. Detroit is home to one of the largest Arab American populations in the country.
“All he wanted was equal airtime for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voices to be able to tell timely, relevant, newsworthy stories about the war in Gaza as it unfolded,” said attorney Amanda Ghannam, who filed the lawsuit on Samra’s behalf in federal court Thursday. “And he wasn’t allowed to do that.
In his lawsuit, he alleges that management began sidelining and scrutinizing him shortly after war broke out in October.