The problem with “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” abruptly canceled just a couple of weeks before production was scheduled to begin on a third season, is that Apple executives didn’t want the show to say whatever it was going to say about various things, including China, where most units of Apple products are still being manufactured despite efforts to shift some production to other countries.
The New York Times reports that Stewart told staff members “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.”
The article doesn’t specify the disagreements about China and artificial intelligence that apparently pushed skittish Apple executives over the edge. A desire to avoid domestic controversy seems insufficient. Such a motive would presumably have kept the show from being added to the Apple TV roster to begin with.
Apple is heavily invested in artificial intelligence. If Stewart was planning to discuss the field at all critically, this intention may have irked the executives.
Perhaps, also, they feared overseas reaction to some of the planned content. Perhaps Jon Stewart wanted the show to discuss unpalatable things about the nature and conduct of the totalitarian Chinese government. Any coverage of China’s domestic and foreign policies that is even 10 percent candid would provoke Chinazi ire and perhaps retaliation against the sponsor of the show, Apple, which does so much business in China.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently traveled to China to meet with Chinese Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, “with both committing to Apple’s participation in developing the country’s digital economy and hi-tech supply chain, as the US technology giant attempts to shift its China narrative amid controversies over national security and censorship.”
