Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly stepped in to squash an Apple TV+ series that would have chronicled the rise of controversial blogging network Gawker Media.
Earlier this year, Vanity Fair reported that Apple TV+ execs were working with former Gawker writers Max Read and Cord Jefferson, among others, on the series. Not much in the way of details were published. However, it sounds like it could have been a scripted show about the “glory days” of a blog known for “skewering the powerful.”
One of the potential problems? Apple and Cook could have been among the powerful in question.
Apple vs. Gawker Media
Apple had a few run-ins with Gawker Media over the years. Notably, the Gawker-owned Gizmodo famously got its hands on and published details of the iPhone 4 ahead of release. This epic leak happened after an Apple employee left a prototype unit in a bar. Gizmodo published its first hands-on look at the iPhone 4 on April 19, 2010 — six weeks before Steve Jobs introduced the device at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. (That was Jobs’ final iPhone keynote and the last time Apple announced a new iPhone at WWDC.)
Even more personally, Gawker ran stories “outing” Cook years before he publicly announced that he was gay. When Cook reportedly found out that Apple TV+ could run a show about the company responsible for this (or, maybe, a thinly vailed riff on it, since the title of the show is the soundalike Scraper), he seemingly stepped in to squash it. According to The New York Times, Cook was “surprised” to hear that Apple TV+ was working on the show. He also “expressed a distinctly negative view” toward Gawker.
If the show really is dead at Apple TV+, it won’t be the first casualty of Gawker’s penchant for publishing details on the personal lives of the rich and powerful. The lawsuit that killed Gawker Media was filed by pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, and bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaire investor Peter Thiel. Gawker tech blog Valleywag previously targeted Thiel’s personal life.
Scraper is supposedly now back on the market, looking for a new home. Apple TV+ exec Layne Eskridge, who brought the show to Apple, is no longer with the company, according to the Times.
Source: The New York Times
