John Stossel

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John Stossel

Born	March 6, 1947 Chicago Heights, Illinois, United States
Occupation	Journalist & Author

John F. Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is a consumer reporter and co-anchor for the ABC News show 20/20.[1][2] His reports, a blend of commentary and reporting, are heavily influenced by his libertarian philosophy, his knowledge of economics (especially the Chicago school), and his skepticism of conventional wisdom.

In his decades as a reporter, Stossel has garnered 19 Emmy Awards and numerous other honors for his reports, as well as attracting criticism for his political views.

1 Work
2 Philosophical influences
- 2.1 Libertarianism
- 2.2 Skepticism
3 Praise and criticism
- 3.1 Awards
- 3.2 Criticisms
4 External links

[edit] Work

[edit] Early career

Stossel graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Psychology in 1969, and was a member of Princeton Tower Club while there. He began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon. His early years included jobs as consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City and as consumer editor at ABC's Good Morning America.

[edit] 20/20

Stossel later became an ABCNEWS correspondent, joining the weekly news magazine program 20/20 in 1981. He became its co-anchor in May, 2003.

In 1984, while filming a segment on professional wrestling, Stossel told wrestler David "Dr. D" Schultz that he thought wrestling was fake. Yelling "You think it's fake?", Schultz physically assaulted Stossel, slapping him twice and knocking him to the ground as well as causing hearing loss. Stossel sued, claiming long-term injury as a result of the assault, and won a settlement. Schultz was fired by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), but he maintains that he was ordered to attack Stossel by representatives of the WWF.

In 20/20's "Give Me a Break" segments, Stossel takes a skeptical look at subjects ranging from government regulations and pop culture to censorship and unfounded fear. "Give Me a Break" was so popular that in 1994 it was spun off into a series of one-hour specials. Topics of these specials include:

"Stupid in America"
"Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?"
"Junk Science: What You Know That May Not Be So"
"Boys and Girls Are Different"
"Freeloaders"
"Greed"
"Is America #1?"
"Stossel Goes to Washington"
"The Power Of Belief"

[edit] Books and educational materials

Stossel has written two books, the first being Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media (ISBN 0-06-052914-8). This autobiography outlines Stossel's career, documenting his philosophical transition from a liberal political stance toward libertarianism. It summarizes his opinions concerning the disasters of excessive regulation and government control, and his strong belief in the power of the free market and private enterprise. In its conclusion he calls for a reform of lawsuits, decreased regulation, and shifting social services away from the government and encouraging private charity.

His second book, published by Hyperion in May 2006, is entitled Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know Is Wrong (ISBN 1-4013-0254-8). In this book, Stossel challenges much conventional wisdom with what he considers to be the facts. The last myth he dispels in the book is the frequently-made claim that he is a conservative.

With financial support from the libertarian Palmer R. Chitester Fund, Stossel and ABC News launched a series of educational materials for public schools in 1999 titled "Stossel in the Classroom".[3]

In September 2006, ABC News and John Stossel released a DVD series titled "Teaching Tools for Economics" based on the National Council of Economics Education standards.[4]

[edit] Philosophical influences

[edit] Libertarianism

John Stossel is one of the few libertarians in mainstream media. As a libertarian, Stossel believes in both personal freedom and the free market. He frequently uses his television airtime to advance these views, and boldly challenges viewers' distrust of free market capitalism and economic competition. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has described him by saying, "Stossel is that rare creature, a TV commentator who understands economics, in all its subtlety."[5]

However, Stossel's views have often been controversial. He has argued that greed is good, because it provides people with an incentive to work and to innovate.[6] He has promoted school choice as a way to improve American schools, because he believes that when people are given a choice they will choose the better schools for their children.[7] This, he feels, will force the worst schools to improve or shut down. Referring to international tests, which consistently show American students doing poorly compared to those in other countries, he says:

The people who run the international tests told us, "the biggest predictor of student success is choice." Nations that "attach the money to the kids" and thereby allow parents to choose between different public and private schools have higher test scores. This should be no surprise; competition makes us better.[8]

Over the years he has also criticized many government programs as inefficient, wasteful, and sometimes harmful.[9]

[edit] Skepticism

Many of John Stossel's news reports and writings come from his skepticism of conventional wisdom. His "Myths and Lies" series of 20/20 specials challenges a wide range of deeply-held beliefs.

As a global warming skeptic, he has gained many opponents. Although he agrees that global warming exists, he argues that the science is not yet settled regarding whether the warming is caused by humans. He also argues that Greenpeace and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore do a disservice by engaging in environmental "scaremongering". As Paul Mayewski—a climate researcher at the University of Maine—said in a 60 Minutes broadcast, "The skeptics have brought up some very, very interesting issues over the last few years. And they've forced us to think more and more about the data that we collect. We can owe the skeptics a vote of thanks for making our science as precise as it is today."[10]

[edit] Praise and criticism

[edit] Awards

Stossel has won many awards, including 19 Emmy Awards. One year, according to Stossel in his book Give Me A Break, "I got so many Emmys, another winner thanked me in his acceptance speech 'for not having an entry in this category.'" Stossel has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Among his other awards are the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.

[edit] Criticisms

Since the late 1990s, Stossel's journalism has increasingly been accused of distorting or leaving out pertinent information and of showing a lack of balance in his selection of interview subjects, some of whom have been known to have corporate ties which often go unmentioned.[11][12][13] The bulk of this criticism comes from progressive organizations[14][15] which strive to expose "conservative misinformation in the media."[16][17] However, John Stossel is a libertarian, not a conservative.[18][19]

[edit] Pesticides

In February of 2000, Stossel ran a segment in which he stated that conventional produce has no more pesticide residue than organic produce. It turned out, however, that Stossel's assertion was based on research which was never actually carried out.[20] Later scientific research supported the opposite conclusion, which makes organic produce a more attractive option for consumers who are concerned about such residues.[21][22][23] As a result of this report, the segment producer, David Fitzpatrick, was suspended without pay for one month and ABC reprimanded Stossel.[24][25]

[edit] Education

In January 2006, Stossel presented a 20/20 special titled "Stupid in America: How We Cheat Our Kids," in which he argued that the public school system is ineffective in teaching students and that the U.S. should instead move to a voucher system. Stossel presented a few charter schools that were doing well and used this as evidence that charter schools are generally better than public schools. Critics contend that Stossel ignored research by the Department of Education which shows that public schools are actually outperforming charter schools on standardized tests.[26][27]

They also note that Stossel interviewed eight advocates of school choice but only two opponents.[28] In response, Stossel points out that students in America still lag behind those in less developed countries that spend less money on education, and that this gap widens by 12th grade. He further notes that the Department of Education study, which was adjusted for demographics, itself admits that "to ascertain the difference between the two types of schools, an experiment would be conducted in which students are assigned [randomly] to either public or private schools".[29]

[edit] Global warming

John Stossel has also been criticized for presenting a critical view of the scientific opinion on climate change (i.e., global warming).[30][31] In June of 2001, for example, Stossel aired a special one-hour segment titled "Tampering with Nature." In this report, he referred to a well-publicized letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists which warned of the "devastating consequences" of global warming: "You may have heard that 1,600 scientists signed a letter warning of 'devastating consequences.' But I bet you hadn't heard that 17,000 scientists signed a petition saying that there's 'no convincing evidence' that greenhouse gases will disrupt the Earth's climate.[32]

What Stossel fails to mention is that signatories for the first letter he describes included 110 Nobel Prize winners and 60 U.S. National Medal of Science winners. There is no record of how many award winners signed the petition championed by Stossel.

The latter petition was the product of the George C. Marshall Institute, which critics paint as affiliated with a number of corporate-funded, conservative organizations known for global warming skepticism.[33][34][35] Signatories for the Marshall Institute's petition included ophthalmologists, dentists, nutritionists, and other falsifications which were encouraged by detractors to the study.[36][37] Of the final 19,700 signatures, 17,800 were independently verified. This included 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists. It also included 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences.[38]

[edit] Other criticism

Unlike most other ABC News reporters, John Stossel's contract allows him to make public speaking engagements with the proviso that he not profit from them.[39] Stossel donates the proceeds from these engagements to several charities. Some observers have complained that one of the charities which Stossel donates money to is the Palmer R. Chitester Fund, which produces "Stossel in the Classroom". These observers see a conflict of interest in this arrangement.[40][41]

[edit] External links

[edit] Biographies of, and articles about, Stossel

ABC News Biography
"Laissez-Faire TV", A balanced article about John Stossel from Brill's Content.
"Stossel's evolution from activist to contrarian angers some of his fans", USA Today
"John Stossel: Myth-Buster", FrontPageMag.com
"John Stossel: Not Afraid to Tell the Truth", NewsMax.com
"John Stossel - Libertarian", TheAdvocates.org

[edit] Articles by Stossel

John Stossel's 20/20 Web Page
John Stossel's Newspaper Columns
"Confessions of a Welfare Queen: How rich bastards like me rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars" is an excerpt from his first book.
"Motivating Factors" Liberty Watch

[edit] Stossel Critics

[edit] Video of Stossel

Co-Anchors of 20/20
Hayes • Hughes • Downs • Walters • Miller • Stossel • Vargas

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