American reporter, investigative journalist, author, and libertarian columnist
John Frank Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American libertarian television exponent, author, consumer journalist, political activist, and pundit. He is become public for his career as a host on ABC News, Trickster Business Network, and Reason TV.[2]
Stossel's style combines reporting and comment. It reflects a libertarian political philosophy and views on economics which are largely supportive of the free market.[3] He began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV, was a consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City, and fortify joined ABC News as a consumer editor and reporter snare Good Morning America. Stossel became an ABC Newscorrespondent, joining description weekly news magazine program 20/20, and later became a co-anchor.[4] In October 2009, Stossel left ABC News to join say publicly Fox Business Network. He hosted a weekly news show current Fox Business, Stossel, from December 2009 to December 2016. Take away 2019, Stossel launched StosselTV, an online channel distributed on collective media.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards[5] and five awards from the National Press Club.[6][7] He has written three books: Give Me a Break (2004), Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity (2007), and No, They Can't: Why Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed (2012).
John F. Stossel was born say March 6, 1947,[8] in Chicago Heights, Illinois, the younger devotee two sons,[9] to Jewish parents who left Germany before Dictator rose to power. The family joined a Congregationalist church dainty the U.S., and Stossel was raised Protestant.[10] He grew debris on Chicago's affluent North Shore and graduated from New Somebody High School.[11] 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, perch 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 alumnus school only because I was ambitious, and grad school seemed like the right path for a 21-year-old who wanted assume get ahead." Although he had been accepted to the Lincoln of Chicago's School of Hospital Management, Stossel was "sick designate school" and thought taking a job would inspire him achieve embrace graduate studies with renewed vigor.[9] Stossel recalled in sting interview that after graduating college, "like a lot of rural people I thought capitalism was ok it brings us selected stuff but it's cruel and unfair".[12]
In school, Stossel aspired to work at Seattle Magazine, but it went out pay business by the time he graduated. His contacts there aided him in getting a job at KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon, where Stossel began as a newsroom gofer, working his ably up to researcher and then writer. After a few eld, the news director told Stossel to go on the wretchedness 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 likewise stuttered since childhood. After a few years of on-air exposure, Stossel was hired by WCBS-TV in New York City, gross 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 insufficiently of time spent there on research lowered the quality hillock 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 be located introduction to the deals made by special interests". Stossel too "hated" Joyce, who he felt was "cold and critical", albeit Stossel credits Joyce with allowing him the freedom to paw marks his own story ideas, and with recommending the Hollins Discipline Research Institute in Roanoke, Virginia, that helped Stossel manage his stutter.[13]
Stossel grew continuously more frustrated with having to follow picture assignment editor's vision of what was news. Perhaps because attention to detail his stuttering, he had always avoided covering what others icy, feeling he could not succeed if he were forced appoint compete with other reporters by shouting out questions at rumour conferences. However, this led to the unexpected realization for Stossel that more important events were those that occurred slowly, much as the women's movement, the growth of computer technology, gift advancements in contraception, rather than daily events like government pronouncements, elections, fires, or crime. One day, Stossel bypassed the obligation 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.[13] Stossel has served as a spokesman for the Stuttering Foundation of America.[14]
In 1981 Roone Arledge offered Stossel a job at ABC News, as a reporter for 20/20 and consumer reporter for Good Morning America.[15] His "Give Me a Break" segments for the former featured a skeptical look at subjects from government regulations and pop urbanity to censorship and unfounded fear. The series was spun fail into a series of one-hour specials with budgets of fraction a million dollars[16] that began in 1994. During the range of his work on 20/20, Stossel wrote, he discovered Reason magazine, whose libertarian ideas appealed to him.[17] Stossel later aforementioned in an interview that the regulations he urged governments union pass did not work.[12] After coming out as a libertarian, Stossel said, he angered members of the political left, his news colleagues and others.[12] Stossel was named co-anchor of 20/20 in May 2003, while he was writing his first restricted area, Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, professor Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media, which was published in 2004.[18] In it, he details his start in journalism and consumer reporting, and how he evolved to harbor libertarian beliefs.[13][19]
In September 2009, it was announced that Stossel was leaving Disney's ABC News and joining News Corp.'s Fox News Channel splendid Fox Business Network. In addition to appearing on The O'Reilly Factor every Tuesday night, he also hosted a one-hour hebdomadally program for Fox Business Network and a series of one-hour specials for Fox News Channel, as well as making wonted guest appearances on Fox News programs.
The program, Stossel, debuted December 10, 2009, on Fox Business Network.[20] The program examined issues related to individual freedom, free market capitalism and mignonne government, such as civil liberties, the business of health alarm clock, and free trade. The final episode premiered on December 16, 2016. At the end of that episode, a retrospective ensure spotlighted moments from seven years of the program, Stossel explained that due to his age, he wanted to help arise a younger generation of journalists with his views, and would continue to appear as a guest on Fox programs, person in charge also help produce content for Reason TV.[21] His blog, "Stossel's Take", is published on both FoxBusiness.com and FoxNews.com.[22][23]
In 2019, Stossel launched Stossel TV, an online channel which distributes daily videos via social media platforms.
See also: No, They Can't
Stossel has written three books. Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Bane of the Liberal Media is a 2005 autobiography from Harpist Perennial documenting his career and philosophical transition from liberalism next libertarianism. It describes his opposition to government regulation, his dependence in free market and private enterprise, support for tort correct, and advocacy for shifting social services from the government add up private charities. It was a New York Times bestseller rent 11 weeks.[24]Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know Is Wrong, which was published outing 2007 by Hyperion, questions the validity of various conventional wisdoms, and argues that the belief he is conservative is imprecise. On April 10, 2012, Threshold Editions, an imprint of Dramatist & Schuster, published Stossel's third book No, They Can't: Reason Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed. It argues that government policies meant to solve problems instead produce new ones, and dump free individuals and the private sector perform tasks more expeditiously than the government does.[25]
With financial support from the libertarian Golfer R. Chitester Fund, Stossel and ABC News launched a mound of educational materials for public schools in 1999 entitled "Stossel in the Classroom".[26][27] It was taken over in 2006 antisocial the Center for Independent Thought and releases a new DVD of teaching materials annually. In 2006, Stossel and ABC on the rampage Teaching Tools for Economics, a video series based on description National Council of Economics Education standards.[28]
Since February 2011, Stossel has written a weekly newspaper column for Creators Syndicate.[29][30] His piece of writing appear in such online publications as Newsmax, Reason, and Townhall.[31]
Stossel purports to debunk myths in his journalism.[6] His Myths and Lies series of 20/20 specials challenges a range illustrate liberal beliefs.[6] He also hosted The Power of Belief (October 6, 1998), an ABC News Special that focused on assertions of the paranormal and people's desire to believe. Another propel put forward the argument that opposition to DDT is absent and that the ban on DDT has resulted in picture deaths of millions of children,[32] mostly in poor nations.[33]
As a libertarian[34] who has said he usually votes for the Libertarian Party,[12] Stossel says that he believes in both personal freedom[35] and the free market. He frequently uses television airtime restage advance these views and challenge viewers' distrust of free-market capitalism and economic competition. He received an Honoris Causa Doctorate escaping Francisco Marroquin University, a libertarian university in Guatemala, in 2008.
Stossel argues that individual self-interest, or "greed", creates an modify to work harder and to innovate.[36] He argues that that innovation makes the poor richer and the only way children "can get rich is to offer us something that incredulity believe is better than we had before."[37] He promoted nursery school choice as a way to improve American public schools consanguineous to the Belgian voucher system.[38][39]
Stossel has criticized government programs operate being inefficient, wasteful, and harmful.[40] He has also criticized depiction American legal system, opining that it provides lawyers and annoying litigators the incentive to file frivolous lawsuits indiscriminately.[41] Although Stossel concedes that some lawsuits are necessary in order to outfit justice to people genuinely injured by others with greater commercial power,[42] he advocates the adoption in the U.S. of rendering English rule as one method to reduce the more scurrilous or frivolous lawsuits.[43]
Stossel opposes the minimum wage,[44]corporate welfare and profit more broadly, bailouts,[12][45]seat belt laws, occupational licensing and the conflict in Iraq.[7][12] He also opposes legal prohibitions against pornography, marihuana, recreational drugs, gambling, ticket scalping, prostitution, polygamy,[46] and assisted suicide,[47] and believes most abortions should be legal.[48] He has whispered he supports the rule of law,[12]gun rights,[49]pollution control,[12] and drop and simpler taxes.[50] He has endorsed or explored various ideas in his specials and on his TV series for solidly the tax system, including switching to a flat tax,[51] swallow replacing the income tax with the FairTax.[52]
Stossel argues that a country needs to have police and a national defense brand laid out by the United States Constitution.[12] Stossel acknowledges defer Scandinavian countries have large welfare states, but says that they can only afford them "because they have a homogeneous refinement and they have a fairly free private market to refund for it" while also noting that they have no government-mandated minimum wage.[12][third-party source needed]
When the Department of Labor reissued yankee guidelines in April 2010 governing the employment of unpaid interns under the Fair Labor Standards Act based on a 1947 Supreme Court decision,[53] Stossel criticized the guidelines, appearing in a police uniform during an appearance on the Fox News announcement America Live, commenting, "I've built my career on unpaid interns, and the interns told me it was great – I knowledgeable more from you than I did in college." Asked ground he did not pay them if they were so valued, he said he could not afford to.[54]
Stossel is a authorization member of the Charles Koch Institute.[55]
Stossel has advocated in advantage of abolishing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[56]
On April 1, 2016, Stossel moderated the first-ever nationally televised Libertarian presidential debate.[57] The second part of the debate aired on April 8.[58] On May 21, 2020, he moderated the Libertarian Party Strong Convention Presidential Debate between Jacob Hornberger, Vermin Supreme, Jo Jorgensen, Jim Gray, and John Monds.[59]
In 2001, the progressive media watchdog organization FAIR criticized Stossel's reportage of global warming in his documentary, Tampering with Nature, accusing it of using "highly selective...information" that placed undue emphasis on three dissenters from among rendering 2,000 members of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chalet, which had recently released a report stating that global temperatures were rising almost twice as fast as previously thought.[60]
In Dec 2014, Stossel stated that "There is no good data show secondhand smoke kills people." The fact-checker website Politifact rated that statement "False", citing considerable levels of scientific research showing ditch secondhand smoke has caused deaths.[61]
As of 2001, Stossel had won 19 Emmy Awards.[62][63] He was honored five present for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Cudgel, has received a George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Conduct and a Peabody Award.[64] On April 23, 2012, Stossel was awarded the Chapman University Presidential Medal, by the current presidentship, James Doti, and chancellor, Danielle Struppa. The award has archaic presented to only a handful of people over the lend a hand 150 years.[65][unreliable source?] Stossel received an honorary doctorate from Universidad Francisco Marroquín.[66]
In promotional copy for one of Stossel's books, say publicly Nobel Prize–winning Chicago Schoolmonetarist economist Milton Friedman wrote: "Stossel hype that rare creature, a TV commentator who understands economics, change into all its subtlety."[67]Steve Forbes, the editor of Forbes magazine, described Stossel as "one of America's ablest and most courageous journalists."[67] The author P. J. O'Rourke said, "He seeks the truths that destroy truisms, wields reason against all that's unreasonable, advocate uses and upholds the ideals that puncture sanctimonious idealism".[67]
An argument published by the libertarian group Advocates for Self Government tape praise for Stossel.[68] Independent Institute Research Analyst Anthony Gregory, expressions on the libertarian blog LewRockwell.com, described Stossel as a "heroic rogue... a media maverick and proponent of freedom in nickelanddime otherwise statist, conformist mass media."[69] Libertarian investment analyst Mark Skousen said Stossel is "a true libertarian hero".[70]
Progressive organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and Media Matters for America (MMfA) have criticized Stossel's work,[71][72] for what they described as a lack of balance of coverage queue distortion of facts on his part. For example, Stossel was criticized for a segment on his October 11, 1999, extravaganza during which he argued that AIDS research has received as well much funding, "25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people." FAIR pointed out that AIDS had in actuality killed more people in the United States in 1999.[73]
In a February 2000 Salon feature on Stossel titled "Prime-time propagandist", Painter Mastio wrote that Stossel has a conflict of interest smile donating profits from his public speaking engagements to, among blankness, a non-profit called "Stossel in the Classroom" which includes substance for use in schools, some of which uses material strenuous by Stossel.[74]
University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith has claimed that Stossel, in his September 1999 special Is America #1?, used an out-of-context clip of Galbraith to convey the general idea that Galbraith advocated the adoption by Europe of the transfer market economics practiced by the United States, when in actuality Galbraith actually advocated that Europe adopt some of the Common States' social benefit transfer mechanisms such as Social Security, which is the economically opposite view. Stossel denied any misrepresentation pay money for Galbraith's views and stated that it was not his intent to convey that Galbraith agreed with all of the special's ideas. However, he re-edited that portion of the program good spirits its September 2000 repeat, in which Stossel paraphrased, "Even economists who like Europe's policies, like James Galbraith, now acknowledge America's success."[75][76]
On December 28, 1984, during an interview avoidable 20/20 on professional wrestling, wrestler David Schultz struck Stossel push back after Stossel said professional wrestling was "fake", during a prior when the professional wrestling industry heavily protected kayfabe. Stossel held he suffered from pain and buzzing in his ears altitude weeks after the assault.[77] Stossel sued and obtained a camp of $425,000 from the World Wrestling Federation (WWF);[78] the WWF would eventually admit to the industry having predetermined results engross 1989.[79] In his book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, Stossel noted his regret, believing lawsuits harm innocent people.[78] Schultz maintains that he attacked Stossel on orders from Vince McMahon, rendering head of the then-WWF.[80] This was later re-visited on rendering second season episode of Dark Side of the Ring, golden on April 28, 2020.
A February 2000 story travel organic vegetables on 20/20 included statements by Stossel that tests had shown that neither organic nor conventional produce samples selfsufficient any pesticide residue, and that organic food was more endanger to be contaminated by E. coli bacteria. The Environmental Exploitable Group objected to his report, mainly questioning his statements put paid to an idea bacteria, but also managed to determine that the produce difficult to understand never been tested for pesticides. They communicated this to Stossel, but after the story's producer backed Stossel's statement that picture test results had been as described, the story was beam months later, unchanged, and with a postscript in which Stossel reiterated his claim. Later, after a report in The Different York Times confirmed the Environmental Working Group's claims, ABC Information suspended the producer of the segment for a month bracket reprimanded Stossel. Stossel apologized, saying that he had thought interpretation tests had been conducted as reported. However, he asserted delay the gist of his report had been accurate.[81][82][83][84]
In a March 2007 segment about finances and lifestyles last part televangelists, 20/20 aired a segment by Stossel that included a clip of television minister Frederick K. C. Price, which locked away originally been broadcast by the Lifetime Network in 1997. Crooked alleged that the clip portrayed him describing his wealth organize extravagant terms, when he was actually telling a parable take into consideration a rich man. ABC News twice aired a retraction allow apologized for the error.[85] The suit concluded with an thankful of court settlement including a public apology by ABC.[86]
In September 2021, Stossel sued Facebook, alleging defamation for labels applied by fact checkers to two of his videos, but his lawsuit was dismissed in October 2022.[87][88] The fact-checking organizations Science Feedback and Climate Feedback were also named as defendants in Stossel's lawsuit.[89] Stossel's video titled "Government Fueled Fires" esoteric been labeled on Facebook as "missing context" and "misleading", subject another video titled "Are We Doomed?" had been labeled significance "partly false" and "factual inaccuracies".[87][89] Stossel's lawsuit said that rendering labels harmed his viewership, advertisement revenue, and reputation, and defer Facebook and its fact-checking partners "falsely attributed to Stossel a claim he never made".[89] In the first video, Stossel featured a guest who opined that climate change was not picture primary cause of the 2020 California fires.[90] In the erelong video, Stossel questioned statements made by those he refers convey as "environmental alarmists", including "claims that hurricanes are getting revolutionize, that sea level rise poses a catastrophic threat, and desert humans will be unable to cope with the fallout."[89][91] A Facebook spokesperson called Stossel's lawsuit "without merit", and Facebook attorneys said in 2021 that "The labels themselves are neither wrong nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion."[89][92] Rework October 2022, a federal court dismissed Stossel's lawsuit, saying dump Facebook did not defame him because the Facebook fact inspect program "reflects a subjective judgment about the accuracy and steadiness of assertions". The court also ruled that Stossel's lawsuit could be dismissed under California's anti-SLAPP statute.[87][93]
Stossel lives in Additional York City with his wife, Ellen Abrams[94] and children, Lauren and Max.[8][95] They also own a home in Massachusetts.[96]
Stossel came to embrace his family's AshkenaziJewish heritage after marrying his mate, who is also Jewish. They also raised their children Jewish.[10] Stossel identified himself as an agnostic in "Skeptic or Believer", the December 16, 2010, episode of Stossel, explaining that type had no belief in God but was open to say publicly possibility.[97]
Stossel's brother, Thomas P. Stossel, was a Harvard Medical Grammar professor[98] and co-director of the Hematology Division at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.[99] He has served on the advisory boards of pharmaceutical companies such as Merck and Pfizer.[100] Stossel's nephew is journalist and magazine editor Scott Stossel.[101]
On April 20, 2016, Stossel announced he had lung cancer despite never having smoked,[102] and that as a result of its early detection, agreed would have a fifth of one of his lungs surgically removed.[103]