Following President Obama’s emphasis on engagement and mutual respect between cultures, 100 young American Muslim leaders in civil society, politics, academia, the arts and media convened in New York to learn techniques for disseminating their collective message of peace, pluralism and justice.
A public panel entitled, “Covering and Uncovering Islam in the Media” with mainstream journalists including Rachel Zoll (Associated Press), Deborah Amos (National Public Radio), Neil MacFarquhar (New York Times), Mohamad Bazzi (Newsday’s Former Mideast Bureau Chief), Noreen Ahmed-‐Ullah (Chicago Tribune), Bobby Ghosh (Time Magazine), and Maria Ebrahimji (CNN) addressed current representations and stereotypes of Muslims in the mainstream media and how to replace those negative images with positive ones through effective communication skills. To equip the MLTs with these skills, they received specialized media skills trainings such as “Messaging and Framing,” “Mastering the Interview,” “Media Rapid Response,” “Building Relationships with Media,” “Self-‐Generated Media,” and “Writing Op-‐Eds.”