Race, Religion & Free Speech
Tuesday 24th November 2015 12.30 – 2pm, Room Lecture Theatre C, London College of Communication. Lunch provided.
BOOK BELOW
TERMS OF REFERENCE – Resource pack
Trevor Phillips, former equality chief officer stated ‘the media have become “terrified” of discussing race issues and multiculturalism has become a “racket”. Social media was subsequently set ablaze with a visible division of opinions after his show, Things We Wont Say About Race. This year has been a catalyst for issues about race and religion. It is now time to reflect about Media’s views on race, religion and free speech by exploring the most debated, popular even contentious hashstags this year.
Keynote Speaker:
Aaqil Ahmed
Head of Religion and Ethics
Aaqil has been in post for over six years. He joined from Channel 4 where he was the Commissioning Editor for Religion and the Head of Multicultural Programming. His role involves being the overall Head of Religion for the BBC across TV, Radio, News and On Line.
Over the past six years he has commissioned projects as diverse as The Life of Muhammad, The Preston Passion, Sacred Rivers with Simon Reeve and Quitting the EDL:When Tommy met Mo. He also led the in-house team’s coverage of the Papal visit and the award winning 50th anniversary of Songs of Praise.
At Channel 4 he commissioned award-winning and genre-defining projects such as Inside The Mind of the Suicide Bomber, Saving Africa’s Witch Children, Priest Idol and The Qur’an. Prior to joining Channel 4 in 2003, he spent over ten years in production at the BBC working on a rich mix of programming from Panorama to Everyman.
He is a Professor at The School of Media and Performing Arts, Middlesex University; a regular speaker and writer on the Media and Cultural Diversity and has contributed as a group member or chair to various educational and work related groups from formerly being a trustee of the Runnymede trust to being a steering group member of the religion and society programme.
Aaqil is currently a board member of Mosaic (mentoring organisation set up by Prince Charles), Chair of the Creative Diversity Network Commissioning Group, a patron of the Curriculum For Cohesion, a Trustee of the London Rugby League Foundation and the President of the BBC Black and Asian Workers Forum.
12:30 Registration & Lunch
13:05 Keynote starts
13:20 Q&A session begins
14:00 EVENT ENDS
