The Crescent Institute welcomed Waleed Aly, lawyer, Author and ABC journalist on the 17th of February 2014.

The inaugural Victorian Crescent Institute event took place at the Melbourne offices of KPMG. With the Crescent Institute events firmly established in Sydney, there was an air of anticipation for the launch of Crescent Institute in Melbourne particularly with the guest of honor Waleed Aly presenting on the hot-topic of media and balance. The event was filled to capacity.

The evening commenced with Omar Chaudhry welcoming all guests on behalf of KPMG followed by a formal introduction by the patron of the Crescent Institute, Talal Yassine OAM. Mr Yassine  introduced the Crescent Institute and sponsors  to the Melbourne audience followed by a formal introduction of Waleed Aly as someone “who has captured the views of a community often misrepresented and spread this to broader Australia through his insightful writing and radio shows”.

Waleed then took to the podium welcoming the Crescent institute to Melbourne, “Welcome to a real city with culture” and expressed his gratitude on the opportunity to launch the Crescent institute in Melbourne.  Mr Aly proceeded to briefly highlight his career background as a lawyer, followed by a Muslim community spokesperson and finally media and journalism. He then delved into the topic area of Modern day media and the existence of balance.

Waleed answered the general question rather swiftly exclaiming, ‘this quest for balance can never be achieved...there is no such thing” given the inherent nature of the audience and the many varying interests/bias’s that exist. Ultimately Waleed explained that what people actually mean by balanced media is to have their views represented as the dominant view in society.

Waleed went on to state that there are no short-term solutions but rather a long-term compositional change of newsrooms is required to achieve a change of media ‘frame'. “Firing off an angry letter won’t change anything in the long term; the most effective way is to actually get involved if one cares enough in order to affect the composition of news rooms”

Finally Waleed concluded with some career advice where he explains that he did not set out to be a journalist, “rather it was a journey discovering through various experiences.” Waleed joked that he began his professional career as a lawyer after studying Engineering and law a field that has little in common with journalism. He went on to highlight that ‘the reason it happened I think, was being at the right place at the right time and someone somewhere liked what they saw”. Waleed emphasized how a point of difference in a world constantly hampered with commonality can be extremely powerful.

Waleed then took questions from the floor around a number of topics including influences of the media on community, democracy - modernity and the Middle East, Facebook and social media as well as a question on how Waleed could possibly support Richmond in the AFL

As a token of appreciation, The Crescent Institute presented Mr Waleed Aly with a $500 donation to a charity of choice.

Check out the video interview below from Waleed Aly

The Crescent Institute would sincerely like to thank Waleed Aly for his attendance and his address to the institute. Additionally the Institute would like to thank its sponsors for their generous support.

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The Institute would like to thank all members and guests who attended the evening. The event would not have been possible without you and hope you had an enjoyable time. 

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