John Stossel
John Frank Stossel is an American libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, political activist, and pundit. He is known for his career as a host on ABC News, Fox Business Network, and Reason TV.
Stossel's style combines reporting and commentary. It reflects a "small L" libertarian political philosophy and views on economics which are largely supportive of the free market. He began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV, was a consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City, and then joined ABC News as a consumer editor and reporter on Good Morning America. Stossel became an ABC News correspondent, joining the weekly news magazine program 20/20, and later became a co-anchor. In October 2009, Stossel left ABC News to join the Fox Business Network. He hosted a weekly news show on Fox Business, Stossel, from December 2009 to December 2016. In 2019, Stossel launched StosselTV, an online channel distributed on social media.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and five awards from the National Press Club. He has written three books: Give Me a Break, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, and No, They Can't: Why Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed.
Early life
John F. Stossel was born on March 6, 1947, in Chicago Heights, Illinois, the younger of two sons, to Jewish parents who left Germany before Hitler rose to power. The family joined a Congregationalist church in the U.S., and Stossel was raised Protestant. He grew up on Chicago's affluent North Shore and graduated from New Trier High School. Stossel characterizes his older brother, Thomas P. Stossel, as "the superstar of the family", commenting, "While I partied and played poker, he studied hard, got top grades, and went to Harvard Medical School." Stossel characterizes himself as having been "an indifferent student" while in college, commenting, "I daydreamed through half my classes at Princeton, and applied to grad school only because I was ambitious, and grad school seemed like the right path for a 21-year-old who wanted to get ahead." Although he had been accepted to the University of Chicago's School of Hospital Management, Stossel was "sick of school" and thought taking a job would inspire him to embrace graduate studies with renewed vigor. Stossel recalled in an interview that after graduating college, "like a lot of young people I thought capitalism was okay; it brings us some stuff but it's cruel and unfair."Career
Early career
In school, Stossel aspired to work at Seattle Magazine, but it went out of business by the time he graduated. His contacts there assisted him in getting a job at KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon, where Stossel began as a newsroom gofer, working his way up to researcher and then writer. After a few years, the news director told Stossel to go on the air and read what he wrote. Despite his stage fright, Stossel says his fear spurred him to improve, examining and imitating broadcasts of David Brinkley and Jack Perkins. Stossel had also stuttered since childhood. After a few years of on-air reporting, Stossel was hired by WCBS-TV in New York City, by Ed Joyce, the same news director who hired Arnold Diaz, Linda Ellerbee, Dave Marash, Joel Siegel and Lynn Sherr. Stossel was disappointed at CBS, feeling that the more limited amount of time spent there on research lowered the quality of its journalism compared to Portland. Stossel cites union work rules that discouraged the extra work that Stossel felt allowed employees to be creative, which he says represented his "first real introduction to the deals made by special interests". Stossel also "hated" Joyce, who he felt was "cold and critical", though Stossel credits Joyce with allowing him the freedom to pursue his own story ideas, and with recommending the Hollins Communications Research Institute in Roanoke, Virginia, that helped Stossel manage his stutter.Stossel grew continuously more frustrated with having to follow the assignment editor's vision of what was news. Perhaps because of his stuttering, he had always avoided covering what others covered, feeling he could not succeed if he were forced to compete with other reporters by shouting out questions at news conferences. However, this led to the unexpected realization for Stossel that more important events were those that occurred slowly, such as the women's movement, the growth of computer technology, and advancements in contraception, rather than daily events like government pronouncements, elections, fires, or crime. One day, Stossel bypassed the assignment editor to give Ed Joyce a list of story ideas the assignment editor had rejected. Joyce agreed that Stossel's ideas were better, and approved them. Stossel has served as a spokesman for the Stuttering Foundation of America.
On December 28, 1984, during an interview for 20/20 on professional wrestling, wrestler David Schultz struck Stossel twice after Stossel said professional wrestling was "fake", during a time when the professional wrestling industry heavily protected kayfabe. Stossel said he suffered from pain and buzzing in his ears eight weeks after the assault. Stossel sued and obtained a settlement of $425,000 from the World Wrestling Federation ; the WWF would eventually admit to the industry having predetermined results in 1989. In his book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, Stossel noted his regret, believing lawsuits harm innocent people. Schultz maintains that he attacked Stossel on orders from Vince McMahon, the head of the then-WWF.
''20/20''
In 1981 Roone Arledge offered Stossel a job at ABC News, as a correspondent for 20/20 and consumer reporter for Good Morning America. His "Give Me a Break" segments for the former featured a contrarian look at subjects from government regulations and pop culture to censorship and unfounded fear. The series was spun off into a series of one-hour specials with budgets of half a million dollars that began in 1994. During the course of his work on 20/20, Stossel wrote, he discovered Reason magazine, whose libertarian ideas appealed to him. Stossel later said in an interview that the regulations he urged governments to pass did not work. After coming out as a libertarian, Stossel said, he angered members of the political left, his news colleagues and others. Stossel was named co-anchor of 20/20 in May 2003, while he was writing his first book, Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media, which was published in 2004. In it, he details his start in journalism and consumer reporting, and how he evolved to harbor libertarian beliefs. Stossel's Myths and Lies series of 20/20 specials challenged a range of liberal beliefs. He hosted The Power of Belief, an ABC News Special that focused on assertions of the paranormal and people's desire to believe.University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith has alleged that Stossel, in his September 1999 special Is America #1?, used an out-of-context clip of Galbraith to twist his words. Stossel denied any misrepresentation of Galbraith's views and stated that it was not his intention to convey that Galbraith agreed with all of the special's ideas. However, he re-edited that portion of the program for its September 2000 repeat.
In a March 2007 segment about finances and lifestyles of televangelists, 20/20 aired a segment by Stossel that included a clip of television minister Frederick K. C. Price, which had originally been broadcast by the Lifetime Network in 1997. Price alleged that the clip portrayed him describing his wealth in extravagant terms, when he was actually telling a parable about a rich man. ABC News twice aired a retraction and apologized for the error. The suit concluded with an out of court settlement including a public apology by ABC.
Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network
In September 2009, it was announced that Stossel was leaving Disney's ABC News and joining News Corp.'s Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. In addition to appearing on The O'Reilly Factor every Tuesday night, he also hosted a one-hour weekly program for Fox Business Network and a series of one-hour specials for Fox News Channel, as well as making regular guest appearances on Fox News programs.The program, Stossel, debuted December 10, 2009, on Fox Business Network. The program examined issues related to individual freedom, free market capitalism and small government, such as civil liberties, the business of healthcare, and free trade. The final episode premiered on December 16, 2016. At the end of that episode, a retrospective that spotlighted moments from seven years of the program, Stossel explained that due to his age, he wanted to help develop a younger generation of journalists with his views, and would continue to appear as a guest on Fox programs, and also help produce content for Reason TV. His blog, "Stossel's Take", was published on both FoxBusiness.com and FoxNews.com.
Stossel TV
In 2017, Stossel launched Stossel TV, an online channel which distributes weekly videos via social media platforms.In September 2021, Stossel sued Facebook, alleging defamation for labels applied by fact checkers to two of his videos The suit also named the fact-checking organizations Science Feedback and Climate Feedback as defendants. Facebook attorneys said in 2021, "The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion." In October 2022, a federal court dismissed Stossel's lawsuit, saying that Facebook did not defame him because the Facebook fact check program "reflects a subjective judgment about the accuracy and reliability of assertions." The court also ruled that Stossel's lawsuit could be dismissed under California's anti-SLAPP statute.