“Comedian Jon Stewart says Apple asked him not to interview FTC Chair Lina Khan”

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CNBC:

Stewart asked Khan why the company might be “afraid” to have certain conversations out in public. Khan said it “shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of companies.”

An alternative explanation might be that it shows what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of government officials.

6 thoughts on ““Comedian Jon Stewart says Apple asked him not to interview FTC Chair Lina Khan””

  1. I think there is a fine line between a fear of getting ambushed with openly biased questions and getting a genuinely objective interview

    I’m thinking of the time when Tom Selleck made the mistake of going on the Rosie O’Donnell show and was completely ambushed and belittled

    While this may not pertain exactly to this issue I can’t imagine having a good objective interview with Jon Stewart as the interviewer.

    I’ve often thought about this and late night TV interviews.

    I think there was a genuine difference between Johnny Carson, say, Stephen Colbert. Or Jon Stewart for that matter

    Is it just me or do you all have the perception that Johnny Carson at least publicly was apolitical?

    I think he made a prescient point on the matter many years ago when he said “why alienate half of your audience?”

    These days all these talkshow hosts are just after their segment of the audience

  2. I think the point is that Lina Khan, an arrogant govt functionary, could unilaterally impose huge costs on Apple. Apple is reasonably afraid of becoming, even by accident, a target of her scrutiny. Stewart in this case is both out of his depth and, as a lowbrow lefty political commentator, secure in his immunity from official abuse. He’s like one of those cleaner fish that swim among the anemone’s tentacles while being immune to the anemone’s sting.

  3. I believe that Apple is already an FTC target and has been for years. Right now it’s the App store,

  6. so there are people you cannot mock or challenge or ever do anything but genuflect with total reverence, good to know, and those you can destroy with abandon,

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