OPINION: We should not judge interviewers for who they interview.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
A lot of people think Ziwe was wrong to invite Nicki Minaj to do a YouTube interview with her, but I think the idea that the media can’t interview certain people is really dangerous. I also think judging an interviewer for whom they choose to interview is dangerous. And the idea that certain people just can’t be interviewed — because we should starve them of attention — is very troubling. Problematic people should be heard. One of the core points of media is that we try to get at the truth and sometimes that means talking to unsavory people.
The backlash against Ziwe asking Minaj for an interview has been loud. She did not interview Minaj. Ziwe just asked for it and got crushed online. This is not a step toward a fair and open media that’s free to try to unearth the truth wherever it can be found.
In general, we should avoid judging interviewers for who they interview. Interviewing someone, aka platforming them, does not mean agreeing with them. And ignoring them, or not giving them attention, does not usually solve anything.
Yes, Ziwe aspires to revel in the spectacle of interviewing Minaj, she wants to create another chapter in the saga of the spiraling of the Harajuku Barbie, but that doesn’t mean Ziwe is absolving Minaj of her, uh, “crimes.” Wait a minute, when did Minaj become so untouchable that we can’t even talk to her? I’ve been as critical as anyone of Minaj for “Bigfoot,” a blatantly sexist song, but she’s not a murderer.
If we were talking about platforming someone who was a killer or a rapist, I could totally understand the idea of not giving them a chance to lie about what happened. I would agree that we could do without interviewing someone like Torey Lanez, but that’s because he’s already had his chance to present his side and a jury has decided. Even if the interviewer was going to press him on admitting what he did and why, I would still say, what’s the value in that conversation? But for Minaj, even though she’s still on Team Torey, she herself is nowhere near Torey’s level. It could be valuable to have someone press her on why she’s still saying Megan lied after a court of law said they agreed with her story.
There’s value in interviewing all sorts of people, even if they’re villains. Jonathan Majors was convicted of doing something heinous but it’s still valuable to interview him and talk about his side of things. My interview with R. Kelly for BET created a mega-viral moment that helped the world see who he really was. He was a villain, but the conversation was valuable. Of course, Minaj is nowhere near the evil of Kelly, and I don’t know why Minaj doing problematic things that are not illegal is a reason to not interview her.
The key is in how you interview them. Will you toss them softballs and giggle when they say crazy things, or will you ask real questions and refuse to let them gaslight the audience? We don’t need interviews like the one where “The Breakfast Club” talked to Russell Simmons and let him say whatever he wanted about his many, many alleged crimes.
Some interviewers have the skill and the backing from an institution to be able to ask difficult questions that interviewees don’t want to deal with. Sometimes interviewees will consent to grappling with difficult questions. But some interviewers will trade access for restrictions, meaning they agree to avoid certain questions in order to get the interview. Or they make themselves known as a softballer so publicists feel comfortable sending them certain clients.
Ziwe is part of a branch of the media that I think of as “journalism-adjacent.” She’s like a journalist, she borrows from journalism tactics, but she does not hold herself to the standards of journalism, and few of us expect her to. She’s more like Stephen Colbert when he was doing the “Colbert Report” or John Oliver in that she mixes journalism and comedy, flowing from back and forth from one to the other. Sometimes she asks tricky questions that make guests feel awkward, but sometimes she’s just joking around. She doesn’t ask all the tough questions that a more serious interviewer would ask, but that’s not her mission, and I think there’s room for her project inside our vast media ecosystem.
If Ziwe were given the chance to interview someone who was truly important and who had done something truly terrible that they had not really addressed publicly and then she just allowed them to laugh and giggle through a conversation with her, that would be troubling. But she has purposely chosen people who seem titillating but also aren’t that serious. Last year, she did a whole YouTube sitdown with George Santos. He is not that serious. He made a lot of mistakes but ultimately, he’s a clown. This is not at all like, say, Jimmy Fallon playfully humanizing Trump back in 2016 when he was still trying to be seen as electable.
Nicki Minaj has said some really inappropriate things, but she is not that serious. This is not at all like, say, Tucker Carlson interviewing Vladimir Putin. Putin’s a very serious person and a very dangerous world leader and we know Carlson will not ask him serious questions or he won’t press him when Putin says untrue things. He won’t apply journalistic scrutiny to Putin. He’ll normalize him and let him get away with spreading lies. That’s a horrifying use of the media space. Ziwe is ultimately a comedian who takes race seriously and combines comedy and postmodern racial studies in a unique way to create interviews that are fun, Blackcentric and not at all consequential. And she doesn’t pretend to be doing real journalism so no one is coming to her interviews saying now we’ll finally get answers to critical questions.
Ultimately, I think media of all sorts must be free to request interviews from people who are deeply problematic. We can’t cancel Ziwe for asking Minaj to talk because silencing media is a dangerous step away from a media that’s comfortable searching for the truth wherever they can find it. Platforming Minaj doesn’t erase her mistakes; it could give us a chance to see what’s really going on with her. And you know we’re all wondering what the hell is going on with her.
Touré is a host and Creative Director at theGrio. He is the host of Masters of the Game on theGrioTV. He is also the host and creator of the docuseries podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and the animated show “Star Stories with Toure” which you can find at TheGrio.com/starstories. He is also the host of the podcast “Toure Show” and the podcast docuseries “Who Was Prince?” He is the author of eight books including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the ebook The Ivy League Counterfeiter.
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