- The Warner Bros. Discovery CEO was heckled throughout a Boston College graduation ceremony Sunday.
- Protestors shouted “Pay your writers” and a aircraft flew over the ceremony with the identical message.
- 1000’s of TV and movie writers have been protesting wages within the leisure business.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s speech at Boston College was drowned out by Writers Guild of America protestors on Sunday whereas he gave a speech in the course of the faculty’s 2023 graduation.
College students, together with these with the varsity’s movie and TV program, in addition to members from the varsity’s chapter of the Younger Democratic Socialists of America, additionally participated by holding indicators and disrupting Zaslav’s deal with, in keeping with the Hollywood Reporter.
Movies and images posted on-line from the college’s Nickerson Area present Zaslav being interrupted the second he hit the stage. As he spoke, he acquired jeers from the gang, with protestors chanting “Pay your writers” and holding up signs that read “WGA STRONG.” A aircraft flew over the graduation as properly with a banner reading “David Zaslav — Pay Your Writers.”
—Tyler Ruggeri (@t_ruggeri) May 21, 2023
Within the video, Zaslav will be seen attempting to chop by means of the heckling with little success and has to pause a number of instances all through the speech.
“Should you wanna achieve success, you are gonna have to determine methods to get together with everybody, and that features troublesome folks. Some folks — some folks might be on the lookout for a combat,” Zaslav mentioned, as protestors shouted, “Pay your writers.”
Following the speech, Zaslav informed The Hollywood Reporter that he’s “immensely supportive of writers and hope the strike is resolved quickly and in a method that they really feel acknowledges their worth.”
The choice to picket the occasion had been planned ahead of time, in keeping with posts from WGA, East, after the college introduced on Might 4 that Zaslav, the 63-year-old multimillionaire heading the operation at media big Warner Bros Discovery, could be their graduation speaker.
“Boston College mustn’t give voice to somebody who desires to destroy their college students’ potential to construct a profession within the movie and tv business,” Jason Gordon, director of communications for the Writers Guild of America, East, informed the Boston Globe in a press release on Might 5.
Round 10,000 writers within the Writers Guild of America started hanging on Might 1 to demand higher wages as royalty funds have practically disappeared due to streaming.
Representatives for Warner Bros, Boston College, and WGA, East didn’t instantly reply to Insider’s request for remark.