Media Iftar Dinner 2023
The 2023 Media Iftar dinner covered a sensitive topic ‘Faith in a Secular Age – Why Belief & Religion still matter’ with an esteemed panel who offered their thoughts including Dr Diana Cousens (Buddhist Council of Victoria), Huda Hayek (Author, Teacher, Writer) & Barney Zwartz (Centre for Public Christianity) with the panel moderated by Nick Richardson (Melbourne Press Club). The 4th instalment of the Media Iftar dinner was held at the Graduate House on the 13th of April 2023.
The conversation touched on some sensitive topics such as the use of faith in public spaces by figures such as politicians and people who hold official public roles in government departments. There were sentiments expressed that people have a right to perform a role while being a devout person of faith but the individual needs to be aware of the job’s expectations and carry out their duties as outlined by the employer. This also applies to journalists who are adherents to a faith as they need to reconcile their faith’s values when doing their duty, especially if it requires an in-depth investigation of members from your faith. The journalist needs to be able to balance the expectation of carrying out their journalistic due diligence to extract the truth and not get caught up emotionally during the process. Diana talked about more engagement between the faith communities and the media sector would help provide basic information for journalists and even find suitable spokespeople to comment on matters that impact their community.
The evening concluded with floor reflections from former journalists and community leaders who emphasised the importance of engagement, which forges stronger connections and provides avenues for more information to be disseminated between the media and faith communities.
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