NZ’s new racist international image, proudly brought to you by TVNZ

the sprout
14 years ago
Categories: boycott, Ethics, International, john key, Media, racism, tv
Tags: Anand Satyanand, paul henry, tvnz

Here’s some of the international coverage of New Zealand that Paul Henry’s racist outburst against our Governor General Anand Satyanand has sparked.

In India and here. Cool, after the recent effigy burnings of a certain Kiwi in New Delhi on the grounds that he was racist, that should really help things heaps. Australia, UK, USA, Thailand. Even Zimbabwe FFS! What heft we’ll have in future international forums on racism and human rights. What a magnet we’ll be for non-white tourists.

Of course it doesn’t help that our chickenshit PM and Minister for Tourism tacitly condoned Henry’s outburst at the time, never even attempting to chastise Henry for making blatantly racist comments against our Governor General. It was only Television New Zealand after all, the state owned broadcasting voice of the nation.

So thanks Paul. Thanks for portraying me and my country to the rest of the world as a bunch of racist fcukers like you.

Thanks too to TVNZ for cheerfully contining to hire this guy and publicly defending Henry’s bigotry, even though you know he’s a pathological bigot – because that doesn’t matter to you as long as he brings in the ratings.

UPDATE: As at midday TVOne have suspended Paul Henry until October 18. TVNZ statement here.

UPDATE: (lprent) Heritage Hotels have informed me that:-

Please be aware Heritage Hotels is not the sponsor of the Breakfast Show and has not been for some months.

UPDATE: I’ve amended the post to remove references to Heritage Hotels, who’ve abandoned sponsorship of Breakfast, despite impressions created by TVNZ‘s tardy web content management. Of course if they remain heavy advertisers in the show and Henry returns, some issues may get revisited.