When Scott Pelley anchors “The CBS Evening News” most nights, he typically does it in one of two ways: from the show’s studio or while on assignment. On Thursday evening, he will try something that is not as common.
Pelley will sit down with five American millennials who are Muslim for a round-table discussion about what life is like living in America, particularly in light of a proposal by Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States. The feature is part of a broader CBS News look set to air in coming days at the issues American Muslims face in U.S. society.
The millennials set to appear on “CBS Evening News” are between the ages of 18 and 24. One is a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and another is a nursing student. A third would like to be a journalist.
“There’s nothing Islamic about ISIS. They’re hijacking an entire religion, an entire way of life. And they’re misrepresenting an entire group of people for something that’s absolutely not Islamic,” says Rafat Khalaf, a sophomore at New York University, who took part in the discussion, during the segment.
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The segment runs as CBS News continues to work to make its programs stand apart from competitors by placing emphasis on in-depth coverage and enterprise reporting. Steve Capus, the former NBC News president who is executive producer of “CBS Evening News,” has since his arrival in 2014, worked to put an accent on elements not always seen in a modern evening-news broadcast, like minutes-long segments and multi-part stories. Chris Licht, executive producer of “CBS This Morning” tries to eschew some of the trappings of other morning-news programs.
Coverage of the topic will continue Friday on “CBS This Morning,” with a discussion with an all-Muslim panel, and will lead into the launch of “Muslim in America,” a multimedia, multi-platform report. The series will feature first-person accounts from a wide-range of Muslims in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Dearborn, Michigan, including religious leaders, Olympians, everyday families and more. The series will then be featured on “CBS This Morning” social media platforms, on CBSNews.com and on CBSN, CBS News’ live-streamed video offering.
