Paper Plus says it will not stock a new book written in collaboration with the mother of the Kahui twins.ONE News revealed on Monday that journalist Ian Wishart has penned a new book with Macsyna King about the deaths of her sons.
There have been growing calls for people to boycott the book, Breaking Silence, and Paper Plus released a statement today saying it has listened to those calls.
Paper Plus CEO Rob Smith said: "Over the past 24 hours we had a significant volume of feedback from our customers both online via our Paper Plus Facebook page as well as through individual communication to our stores and support office. We have also been in close consultation with our franchise holders and staff to understand their position on this subject."
"The prevailing opinion is that our stores do not feel comfortable selling this book and our customers do not want to buy it. This is certainly not about censorship or Paper Plus taking the moral high ground. We are simply listening to our most important stakeholders and acting in accordance with their feelings."
The Paper Plus Group is to be commended for listening to its customers. We understand too that The Warehouse will not be stocking the book either, and will confirm that in due course.
In the meantime, there are now over 25,000 people who have clicked the "like" button on the Boycott the Macsyna King Book Facebook page. Whilst some of the comments being left there don't make nice reading, there are positive things happening. Among them is a suggestion from the page's administrator that people write to the Chief Coroner, Judge Neil Maclean asking him to use his powers to make the book available to both the Coroner conducting the inquest which is in progress at the moment and to the Police. Surely, if Ian Wishart has new evidence, it should be released to the appropriate authorities.
People Power is alive and well. And in the time since we started this post, went out to a meeting and then returned, it has been confirmed that The Warehouse has a corporate conscience as well, and that Whitcoulls will make an announcement tomorrow. That's good news indeed.
13 comments:
People power!? Suits you sir! Better than Simon Power, but not quite as all powerful as a higher power huh?
People should be put in their places. Not a peep from my peeps on this one.
Sad. I would not have bought the book but don't feel that I have any rights to determine what my neighbours read. One wonders if the curvature of the earth would have become common knowledge if the flat earth society (AKA RC Church of the day) had got their way.
sad
Sorry Penny; this thread is not about corporate corruption, about which your views are well known.
Please stick to the topic, and leave out all the autobiographical stuff; it spoils things for readers.
Wishart is free to write and publish the book, Paperplus and Warehouse are free to decide whether they wish to sell it.
From where I stand, I cannot see a difference between this facebook group calling for the ban of a book and the Nazis burning books.
What's next, rounding up authors and burn them on the stake because we don't agree with what they do??
Just some food for thought.
Slight difference Anon; the group isn't calling for a ban (compulsory); it's advocating a boycott, which involves choice. If people choose to buy the book, that's fine. I don't intend to.
And what if the book is the greatest "don't do as I did" testimony the country has ever seen?
Quite frankly, I find opposition to this book bizarre, especially when you consider no one has even read it.
Hey Iv2 we will have to agree to differ.
My belief in "free speech" is pretty well entrenched although there are still some things I would support banning bad as this is it doesn't make it for my line in the sand.
Free speech isn't compromised GD. if people want to buy the book, they can. Conversely, if bookstores don't want to stock it, that's fine too.all this campaign is doing is encouraging people not to buy the book; no-one's talking of banning it.
I am with Anonymous(6.47pm).I probably would not have bought this book. However the way this boycott has developed concerns me,so I now intend to buy it. The internet has been great force for getting information into the public domain which in days prior to the internet would have been suppressed. Here we have the internet being used in an attempt to suppress information. In the end I doubt if it will succeed. But it is worrying.
Pressurizing the major retailers not to stock the book is a de facto ban. The only way you can now purchase the book is directly from Ian's publishing company, effectively eliminating casual purchase. If people objected to the book, they simply should not have bought it.
There have been a number of incidences in the past where Christians have objected to a book being sold, only to be loftily told that free speech is paramount. Suddenly free speech is not worth a damn because the objections are ideologically, instead of religiously motivated. This smacks of hypocrisy to me
I have always maintained that an author has the right to print and sell what he likes. If I think it is objectionable, I also have the right to say why I object and why I think it is wrong. Attempting to suppress a writing merely lends it legitimacy and mystique.
I'll warrant a lot of people who have expressed outrage and have pressured book retailers not to stockm the book have also vocally claimed support for Voltaire.
Hypocrites
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