Workshop: Crafting the story

In this session, Joe Grimm and Osama Siblani led a guided conversation with representatives of the local Muslim community, who were invited as guests to the conference, to help participants improve their interviews, strengthen their sourcing and use more precise language in their stories.

Joe Grimm is visiting editor in residence at the Michigan State University School of Journalism and adjunct faculty member of the Freedom Forum's Diversity Institute. Joe is also co-director of The Living Textbook, an Asian American Journalists Association project in a largely Arab-American middle school. In 2000, Joe created "100 Questions and Answers About Arab Americans: A Journalist's Guide." He worked for 25 years at the Detroit Free Press and created the www.JobsPage.com journalism careers site.

Osama Siblani is publisher of The Arab American News. Born in Lebanon, Osama came to the U.S. in 1976 to attend the University of Detroit. He founded his newspaper in 1984. Since then, he has made multiple appearances on or been interviewed by virtually every major media outlet, including ABC, CBS, the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, Fox, PBS, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek, as well as other newspapers throughout the world, and has become one of the most prominent voices of the Arab American community.