Apple Cancelled Jon Stewart Because Feckless Tech Executives Were Afraid Of The Pesky Truth

Last week, the New York Times reported that Apple had cancelled The Problem With Jon Stewart." More importantly, the Times noted that Apple executives, clearly not at all worried about the need for a healthy editorial firewall, had grown uncomfortable with the way that the program was planning to cover issues such as China and AI:

Mr. Stewart and Apple executives had disagreements over some of the topics and guests on The Problem," two of the people said. Mr. Stewart told members of his staff on Thursday that potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence were causing concern among Apple executives, a person with knowledge of the meeting said. As the 2024 presidential campaign begins to heat up, there was potential for further creative disagreements, one of the people said."

It's an embarrassing and ridiculous look for Apple, whose global expansion ambitions were in no way meaningfully threatened by a talk show that hadn't seen widespread success. But both the Times story and this follow up Hollywood Reporter story make it abundantly clear that Apple executives thought they could bully Stewart into softening his coverage of key tech issues:

Sources tellTHRthat there had been tension between Apple and Stewart ahead of the show's third season return over topics featured onThe Problem. Those same sources note that Apple approached Stewart and informed the host that both sides needed to be aligned" regarding topics on the show. Stewart, sources say, balked at the idea of being hamstrung" by Apple, which threatened to cancel the series. Stewart, sources say, wanted to have full creative control of the series and, after Apple threatened to cancel the series, told the tech company that he was walking away from the show rather than have his hands tied.

You genuinely don't see business decisions this myopically stupid very often. Sure, CNET once refused to give Dish Network a CES award because its parent company at the time (CBS) was engaged in a legal fight over ad-skipping. And there was that time that Verizon tried to launch a news empire but then banned its reporters" from covering issues like net neutrality or mass surveillance.

But generally speaking, even the dumbest tech sector executives know that it's an extremely bad look to engage in this kind of heavy-handed meddling with journalistic integrity. Especially given that nothing Stewart could have possibly said about China or the AI hype cycle isn't being said at a hundred other news outlets, many of which have significantly larger reach.

It's a lovely example of how tech companies won't be saving journalism anytime soon because they simply lack the ethics or integrity for the job.

There's no shortage of tech billionaires and executives, like Elon Musk, who see critical journalism as a mortal enemy that's out to unfairly get them, not as an essential function of a healthy society. Then there's a parade of other tech executives (many of whom own media companies) who just don't care; they prefer news simulacrum - something that looks news-ish and is peppered with the kind of shallow techno-optimism guys like Marc Andreessen prefer, but generally doesn't ask hard questions or look under the hood.

Apple's decision comes at a time when U.S. journalism is increasingly on its back foot thanks to decades of incompetent mismanagement and layoffs. It also comes at a time when propaganda and disinformation routinely see as much if not more reach than many traditional news organizations. The result is a dumber, more divided public and even a measurable shift in electoral outcomes.

Tech giants may be financially well positioned to help in the ongoing fight between foundational truth and delusion. But not, apparently, if doing so requires the slightest bit of ethical backbone. What U.S. journalism desperately needs are leaders with bold new ideas for creative new journalism funding models that scale. What it's getting instead is a rotating crop of the biggest, thinnest-skinned babies imaginable.