TVNZ censors Ziggy Marley interview because he has the wrong views
The Herald reports:
Stan Walker interviewed Ziggy Marley for Seven Sharp ahead of the release of One Love, but days later all traces of it were deleted from Walker’s and the show’s social media. TVNZ reveals the reason why to the New Zealand Herald.
The camera starts rolling. Stan Walker walks into a dark room. He grins ear to ear, sits down and admits he is “really nervous” to interview controversial musician Ziggy Marley, son of Bob Marley. On screen behind them is a movie poster with the famous Rastafarian colours, promoting the new Bob Marley biopic One Love.
Kicking things off with a Māori welcome, Walker tells a smiling Ziggy, “It is an honour and a privilege to be here to interview you.” The pair then engage in a relatively wholesome interview discussing the inspiration behind One Love, a movie produced by Ziggy that tells the story of his late father and his journey to becoming the most famous reggae musician in the world.
It was an interview conducted for TVNZ’s 7pm current affairs show Seven Sharp, with the full conversation between the two musicians airing on TV earlier this month. Clips of their conversation were shared on both the show and Walker’s social media accounts.
So it was an interview between two musicians.
Days later, all traces of it were scrubbed from the internet without explanation. Now, a TVNZ spokesperson tells the NZ Herald why.
Praising Walker, the spokesperson revealed that it wasn’t the interview that resulted in the surprise decision to remove all traces of it, but rather social commentary.
“Stan Walker conducted a fantastic interview with Ziggy Marley about the new film One Love for Seven Sharp, and the piece was a hit both on-air and online,” they said. However, once the piece was uploaded to social media, comments took away from the purpose of the interview, leaving TVNZ no choice but to remove it from the Seven Sharpsocial media accounts.
“Social media commentary moved away from what the interview was about and we decided to take the piece offline,” the spokesperson said.
What this means is that they gave into a woke mob. Why?
Though the content has since been deleted, “social media commentary” can be seen on other accounts, including @palestinian.youth.aotearoa, criticising Walker for interviewing Marley. There has also been a petition launched against Marley’s headlining the upcoming Womad NZ festival.
A collective of groups – Hala.aotearoa, Artists for Ceasefire and Aotearoa for Ceasefire – is petitioning Womad to drop Marley from its lineup after he helped to raise US$60 million for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in 2018.
Great example of cancel culture. This interview wasn’t about the Middle East or Gaza. It was about music and musicians. But because he has the wrong view on Israel, they have deleted the interview.