Dialogues on Diversity hosted "Covering Religion on the American Campus: Journalism and the Effects of Sept. 11" yesterday in the Michigan Union. The discussion, featuring two guest journalists and a media critic, focused on the portrayal of Muslims and Arabs in American media in the past year.

"Even before (Sept. 11) we had been taught to fear most things Arab and most things Muslim," Jack Shaheen, a media critic and author of the book "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People," said to the crowd. "One's religion and ethnic background should never enter into how we perceive people."

While noting the explosion of media coverage during the past year made Americans more aware of the Arabic and Muslim communities, the speakers spoke out against generalizations and emerging stereotypes of Muslim and Arab people, particularly the ideas that all Arabs are Muslim and that all Muslims are terrorists.

"What we've done is take the lunatic fringe and said that it represents millions of Arabs and Muslims," said Shaheen, a Michigan Journalism Fellow alum. The crowd responded with applause.

Speaker David Crumm, a religion correspondent for the Detroit Free Press, pointed out periods in America's past when particular races and ethnicities were stereotyped and vilified by the media. He emphasized the portrayal of the Japanese during World War II.

"Journalists sought to demonize the Japanese during World War II, and I don't believe that it's a far stretch to draw parallels between that imagery and the way we portray al-Qaida and the Islam and Muslim communities," Crumm said, holding up books with covers that showed large groups of Arabs. "We are bombarded by images of the unwashed masses coming at us from the covers of the book, and we are made to fear them." He added that if such hate rhetoric were allowed to continue, then history threatens to repeat itself.

Jodie Wilgoren, a bureau chief for the Chicago branch of The New York Times attributed many of the misconceptions to American's unfamiliarity with the idea of life being surrounded by politics.

"People here don't live politics," she said.

With the country at war and images of Sept. 11 still strong in the minds of Americans, Crumm suggested that it was not the best time to make decisions.

"In this fog of war it is difficult not to drown in the sea of information," Crumm said. "It is a very confusing time to be journalists as well as receivers of the media."