SHOULD artists be allowed to take public positions on "controversial" issues like Gaza?
This was essentially the question posed to panelists on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme this weekend.
It comes as the fallout continues over Ed Sheeran's comments on Gaza, with the singer-songwriter facing intense backlash after rapper Macklemore was dropped as a support act on his US tour after making pro-Palestine comments.
Sheeran initially refused to state his position publicly, and took a "both sides" approach to Israel's brutal bombardment of Gaza – which a UN inquiry has determined amounts to genocide. He later apologised, but not before the remaining support acts and his band dropped out from the rest of the tour.
During Sunday's programme, Kuenssberg asked the panel: "Is it for people who are singers, songwriters, artists, to be taking public positions on very, very controversial, difficult, complicated issues?"
The show's panelists held a range of views. While former Tory MP-turned comedian Gyles Brandreth said he was "quite happy for entertainers to entertain, and political people to be political", campaigner Nicola Thorp said that "it is not controversial to be against killing children or be against what scholars have called a genocide".
So why is the BBC's flagship Sunday politics show treating artists' views on Gaza as some kind of credentials test, rather than recognising it as part of normal democratic debate?
Des Freedman, a media expert at Goldsmiths University of London, believes the incident fits a wider pattern, accusing mainstream journalists such as Kuenssberg of acting as "unaccountable gatekeepers" who decide who is allowed to speak on "difficult" subjects.
He asked: "Would Laura Kuenssberg have raised the same concerns to an economist about complex matters of finance like interest rates levels and government bond yields?
"Yet apparently, musicians aren’t sufficiently knowledgeable to take a position on Israel’s assault on Gaza, a situation that has been described both by the UN and leading academics as a genocide."
Freedman pointed out that musicians "have always engaged with matters of public debate". On Gaza specifically, Massive Attack, Garbage and Roger Waters have all consistently voiced support for Palestine, while The Specials are well known for backing anti-racist and anti-war causes.
But Freedman added: "Mainstream journalists like Kuenssberg apparently believe that only they and selected politicians should be able to talk freely about what they describe as 'difficult' subjects.
"Meanwhile millions of ordinary people are expressing their opinion every day about Gaza and indeed on their own media’s complicity in failing to hold Israel to account."
This isn't an isolated row. The BBC has long been under intense pressure over its coverage of Gaza, and just earlier this month a top presenter at the corporation was rapped by bosses after referring to the genocide in Gaza.
Freedman said Kuenssberg's line of questioning is "yet further evidence of the failure of 'due impartiality' to be able to report openly and fearlessly on Israel’s activities in the Middle East and the increasing hostility they face".
The expert added: "The path to peace in the region may indeed be complex but musicians – and anyone else who is interested – have the right to condemn what they rightly see as a genocide without having their credentials examined by unaccountable gatekeepers at the BBC."
The BBC was approached for comment.
