Palestinian journalist at Detroit news station sues, alleges retaliation, racial discrimination

A Metro Detroit Palestinian journalist is suing his employers, including CBS and WKBD, for discrimination after the news station fired him.

Ibrahim Samra, 27, a Dearborn resident and former journalist with CBS News Detroit, filed a federal lawsuit against CBS/CTS Inc., WKBD Inc., CBS Broadcasting Inc. and Paramount Pictures Corporation last week for breach of contract, retaliation and racial, religious and national origin discrimination.

Samra, who was the only Arab, Palestinian and Muslim employee at CBS News Detroit, alleges his employers accused him of producing "one-sided" coverage after the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, according to a lawsuit filed with the US District Court Eastern District of Michigan.

"The loss of his reporting is really a loss for the entire community," his attorney, Amanda Ghannam told The News.

CBS Detroit issued a statement saying it does not comment on pending litigation or employee matters.

Samra, an Emmy-nominated reporter who previously worked in South Bend, Indiana, started working for CBS News Detroit in the fall of 2022 as a multimedia reporter. He was recruited to work for the station, according to the complaint.

But in October 2023, when the Israel-Hamas conflict began, Samra contends his employers began to treat him "differently" than his colleagues, according to his lawsuit. He contends they used offense language, rejected his story pitches and removed him from his beat covering the Metro Detroit area including Dearborn. He contends his employers also disparately scrutinized his personal social media activity, according to the lawsuit.

"This case is not just about Ibrahmi Samra," Ghannam said. "This case is about the community that he was assigned to cover and their stories and the work that he was doing to make sure that communities here in Metro Detroit had access to the information that he was reporting on."

Samra took a leave of absence to return to Chicago, where he was born and raised, to care for his ill mother in early October, according to the suit.

Samra's supervisor called him while on leave to ask for contacts with insight on the war's impact on Palestinian-American families, according to the suit. But the station didn't follow up on Samra's offer to provide contacts for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim perspectives, according to his lawsuit, and instead encouraged other reporters to cover stories on Israeli families and perspectives.

"Mr. Samra felt that Defendants' coverage of the war was beginning to feel unbalanced, and he wanted to provide equal airtime to families and communities experiencing the war's other side," according to the suit.

Samra later posted a video on his personal Instagram account after attending a demonstration in Chicago, opposing the Israeli and U.S government's actions since the war began.

When Samra returned to the CBS News Detroit from caregiving leave on Oct. 23, his employers, including his supervisor, Paul Pytlowany, the station's news director, allegedly asked hostile, offensive questions about his personal social media accounts, according to the suit. Pytlowany couldn't be reached for comment.

Samra emailed his supervisors on Dec. 5 to allege discrimination and later requested an investigation into CBS News Detroit's coverage of the war and his discrimination complaints.

His employers briefly allowed him to cover some stories he pitched on the Arab and Muslim community's perspectives on the war, but continued to single him out, according to the suit.

Jennifer Gordon, the former vice president of employee relations for Paramount Pictures Corporation, investigated Samra's complaint and concluded that he had not violated any employee policies or journalistic standards.

Samra learned Gordon was no longer with Paramount Global less than two weeks later on Feb. 26, 2024.

"On information and belief, based on the timing of Ms. Gordon’s abrupt departure, Defendants terminated Ms. Gordon because she substantiated Mr. Samra’s concerns about disparities in coverage of the Israel-Hamas war," according to the suit.

Eventually, Samra wrote an email to his employers, saying his treatment as the station's only Arab American, Palestinian American journalist at CBS Detroit was "yet another example of being single out, targeted, intimidated and discriminated against."

The defendants terminated Samra's employment less than an hour and half after he sent the email, according to the suit.