“In a live TV segment of CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Street’ on Friday, co-anchor Simon Hobbs caused a kerfuffle when he inadvertently ‘outed’ Apple CEO Tim Cook as being openly gay,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider. “The gaffe came during a discussion with New York Times columnist and CNBC contributor James Stewart, who was on the show to talk up his latest think piece dealing with corporate culture and gay executives.”
“Specifically, Stewart told ‘Squawk’ anchor Carl Quintanilla that his most recent column focuses on former BP chief John Browne, who recently wrote a book dealing with the ‘tortured life’ he led as a closeted gay CEO. Browne resigned from his post at the huge multinational oil and gas company in 2007 after being outed by a tabloid,” Campbell reports. “Stewart said he was surprised to learn that Browne is the first executive of a Fortune 500 or FTSE 100 company to publicly acknowledge that they are gay. The column explores why, in spite of civil rights advances, a stigma appears to exist at such high levels of business. ‘I just found it very, very fascinating,’ Stewart said. ‘Of course, there are gay CEOs in major companies, and I reached out to many them. I got an extremely cool reception — not one would allow to be named in the column.'”
“Then Hobbs jumped in,” Campbell reports. “‘I think Tim Cook is open about the fact he’s gay at the head of Apple, isn’t he,’ Hobbs asked. Following a stifling silence from the panel, and a disparaging shake of the head from Stewart, the anchor tried to recover. ‘Oh, dear, was that an error? I thought not.’ The irony of Hobbs’ ill-timed mistake was not lost on co-anchor David Faber, who said, ‘Wow, I think you just…yeah.’ Listening closely, Hobbs can be heard just under the prattle of his co-anchors trying to cover for the slip, saying, ‘I think he’s very open about it.'”
Read more and see the video in the full article here.
Related articles:
Does the press have an ethical duty to out powerful gays in tech? – August 31, 2011
Gawker’s Valleywag outs Tim Cook as ‘most powerful gay man in Silicon Valley’ – January 21, 2011
Could care less. If he’s gay whoopty doo! He is an excellent CEO at an excellent company. Doing a great job and that’s all I care about regarding Mr Cook
THE ISSUE IS PRIVACY, not homosexuality in itself.
its not the cnbc host right to discuss anyone’s private life, whether true or not.
No, discussing the private lives of other people is not his right—or anyone’s right, you would think. But there is a HUGE industry devoted to nothing but>/i>discussing the private lives of celebrities and other public figures. It is the lowest form of mass entertainment, and it’s everywhere.
Tim being gay is not new news it’s old news and big deal, who cares. Like it matters.
Privacy is dead. Long live privacy.
IT IS NOT Privacy, its about saying something that may or may NOT be true as if it were TOTALLy true. The newscaster who spoke about Tim Cook being Gay had NO PERSONAL knowledge, then blabbed on as if he did have.
That is NOT OUTING, that is possibly Libel.
Just saying.
Apples CEO is a buttfucking homo no surprise their
Please, he was “outed”? The news talked about how he was gay when be became CEO! And now we are supposed to be shocked? If you didn’t know he was gay, you weren’t paying attention
Journalist…
Yeah how can you “out” someone when it’s already common knowledge with anyone paying the remotest of attention? Especially journalists for Chriminy’s sake? The shame is all on THEM. By underlining it they make a big deal of it instead of simply accepting it as a fairly common new normal these day. I lose all hope for 21st century journalism.
This could not be more stupid:
…he inadvertently ‘outed’ Apple CEO Tim Cook as being openly gay
‘Outing’ is idiotic activity to start with. But obviously you can’t “out” someone who is already OUT.
When I see crap like this I immediately wonder about the person doing the ‘outing’. Maybe they’re worried about being ‘out’ed themselves.
When did Tim Cook publicly say he was gay?
It has been known since before he was CEO.
Exactly! CNBC calls itself a business broadcaster.
Who cares if he’s gay? What I care more about are these news douchebags who do NO “homework” before their interviews. News anchors and analysts alike all need to be fired. Pompous asses are all they are.
Well there is t least one moron on here who does and makes bigoted remarks at every opportunity he can, and others who chirp in or make occasional remarks. It really obstructs intelligent debate here at times and I see no reason why this would not be magnified at times in the real world especially when they can disguise it as some do here as attacks on his management style. Fact is most people would not have known and someone’s sexuality should not be discussed unless it has done relevance to his/her competence or behaviour where some link might be argued.
Unfortunately, there’s more than the one I think you’re talking about; fortunately, his most recent anti-homsexual tirade from earlier this week was deleted by MDN.
Take a nap.
P.S. Seems like Simon Hobbs needs a good C in his mouth to keep him from talking.
😀
I might have said the same thing as Hobbs. It seems to me that Cook being Gay has been common knowledge for years. No reason for Hobbs to “keep a secret”. The stunned awkward reaction to Hobb’s remark is the most Gay part of the event.
Who cares if it is common knowledge? Unless being gay has anything to do with a tech company, why don’t all interviews bring up people being straight? It was an asshole move. Period.
Hey, keep your remarks in the context of the story. The entire show was a discussion of Gays in high corporate positions, and the issues they face. This topic interests me not in the least, but the show was discussing published articles and books on the subject, so obviously, it interests some segment. Bottom line, though, is that in the context of a discussion about Gay CEOs it would have been remarkable if someone HADN’T mentioned Cook’s name, The castigation of Hobbs, like he actually “outed” Cook is ridiculous.
Good point. The others on set, who shuffled their papers and giggled were the real buffoons here. Hobbs should have looked them in the eye and told them to grow up.
You’re absolutely correct.
√ Point!
I’m not sure that Tim has ever addressed it publicly, but that does not mean that it is not common knowledge. No big deal, no harm, no foul, nothing to see here.
Tim Cook is a wonderful brilliant and lovely person. CNBC is nothing more than a rag channel and it’s so-called anchor an idiot . What Tim Cook does in his private life is nobody else’s business and. The same goes for the rest of us. Disgraceful CNBC!!
The statement wasn’t disgraceful. The response of embarrassed silence and muttering was.
Yup
they should have asked him if he was gay, and asked him if anyone in his family was gay, and asked if any of his co-workers was gay, and asked him if anyone he knew were gay, and then ask if he was willing to say who, which, etc,,,
get personal with someone who is so willing to be such?
this guy outed himself as a complete jerk,
Agreed.
Yet we honor the buffoon by talking about it here. The problem with cable news is excessive prattle and insufficient thought. I once saw about 5 Faux News talking heads sitting in front of a camera spouting out what seemed to be a Twitter feed. The extreme case of all prattle and no thought, but it filled the air time.
He was on a list of most powerful gay people months ago. Old news.
I wouldn’t call what happened an “outing.” The guy just reiterated unsubstantiated, but common, knowledge. He wasn’t speaking from a position of personal knowledge, right?
we should “out” this talking head, he must know from experience… or he is a failure as a journANAList
The problem is not that Tim Cook might be gay. The problem is that some asshole “journalist” couldn’t contain himself from getting that information out. I highly doubt that this was a mistake. The media has been hellbent on starting another civil rights battle so that they can report on it. It doesn’t matter to them if the battle is over gays, or some other group. This is Tim Cook’s personal private business. It’s up to him to reveal personal details about himself, and if he chooses to not reveal details of his personal life, I totally respect that. What’s really sad here is that our society even cares about someone’s race, their religion, or their sexual orientation. We’re all people. Let’s move on and put bigotry behind us. As John F Kennedy once said, “For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
Especially that very last bit. Life is too short to squander on the mouthings of sensation-seeking hirelings in journalist clothing.
Oh my, you hit my nail right on my head, (and not in a bad way)
I have cancer and cannot imagine having no more pleasure in my life simply because the culture somehow shuns my idea about what is pleasurable,
even if my “kink” is only slightly different than mainstream,
as of yet, that is,, !-)
All power to you my friend, glad I could raise a wink and a smile 🙂
Sorry to hear, good luck on dealing with your cancer.
Great post by the way, thank you.
This just so doesn’t matter. Nobody gives a flying toss that Tim Cook is gay, the only thing people care about is how he’s running Apple.
“WHAT! HE’S GA!” I’m going to turn back in all my Apple toys & protest! Gays running the world! We are DOOMED! PS: just overkill! I love my Apple Products.
Ah the modern day jouranalist at his worse, running on speculation and rumor instead of reporting the facts. I can just imagine Tim Cook or some other figure coming out of the closet and revealing that he is bisexual and would love to have a union between a man and a woman. That could lead to a demand for sum sex marriages. Pandemonium would reign and nimrods like Simons Hobbs would be the ones failing to report on it.
In related news, a sack of rice fell off a truck in China. Yawn.
I have a more basic problem about this article: even if TC is gay or not gay, why even mention it? It’s not relevant. This is how discrimination starts – people pointing out things because it’s different. I know, it’s human nature and that’s what our brains are designed to recognize. But this is 2014.
I was going to post something über-politicallyi correct here. But, after reviewing the posts here, I don’t think there’s anything I could add. Congratulations, you have clearly very high morals. Thank you for sharing.
MDN, I’m surprised you reposted this article. It wasn’t necessary and it reflects badly on you.
Let it go MDN.
(sarcasm) Yes, I want my “news” to only consist of things I like or agree with. You know, like MSNBC. Groupthink soothes my simple mind. (/sarcasm)
Good to see another MSNBC fan. I thought MDN was pretty heavily a Faux News crowd.
But, fact driven news with context and background aside, I find a regular schedule of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Bill Mahr covers most of the real issues.
For comedy, I like to watch C-SPAN coverage of any Committee with Elisabeth Warren asking the questions. Talk about skewering gas bags.
Keep on moving. Nothing to see here.
Don’t really care what he does in his personal life. He seems like a great ceo and glad to have him at Apple. People need to stop talking about it because if he’s gay or straight and sucks at being a ceo I want him out. If he’s good then gay or straight I want him at Apple. If he’s happy in his personal life, however he leads it, great with me. Everyone deserves to live there life to the fullest.
This is such a non-story on so many levels. Nobody (relevant) cares if he’s gay. He wasn’t outted. The comment was a mistake because although Tim Cook hasn’t directly stated publicly that he’s gay, it’s pretty common knowledge and he’s made comments that allude to him being gay which is why so many people have been confused on whether he’s directly stated so publicly.
Tim Cook always had my support, and still does. Tim’s the second best thing that ever happened to Apple.
Whatever happened in people bedroom is none of anyone business. CNBC is merely stupid, invasive privacy.
Well it is common knowledge that Tim Cook is openly gay. You can still be openly gay and be very private about your personal life. There was nothing wrong with the TV presenter naming Tim Cook. What was wrong was firstly not knowing that he is only gay and then all the ducking for cover by the other ‘journalists’ who completely over-reacted to the repeating of very, very common knowledge.
If they had’ve started speculating about this or that to do with Tim Cook being gay and how that may or may not have influenced this or that, about things they have no knowledge of and things which Tim has never discussed publicly, then they would have crossed a line.
Where is it common knowledge that Cook is openly gay? Has he ever publicly said that he is gay? Is he out and about in public with male (boy)friends?
Who the hell am I …,
What is the media’s fascination with all things LBGT? It’s not like it’s a “new” topic. The American people have been sufficiently indoctrinated to know now that LBGT folks “walk among us”.
Someone’s sexual preferences shouldn’t even be newsworthy anymore. Nothing to see here, move along.
How the hell do you out someone who’s OPENLY GAY?