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Ep. 72 - John Stossel: Libertarian Billionaires' Inside Man

Added 2019-04-10 15:48:21 +0000 UTC

Though now a fixture of the fringe right-wing, libertarian pundit John Stossel was a longtime staple of mainstream, Serious Person media. With hour-long specials and a weekly segment on the ABC program 20/20, Stossel built his brand as muckraking Truth-Teller against Big Government and out of control "political correctness", along with an empire of high school “educational” videos, distributed by libertarian billionaire-funded front groups to tens of thousands of American classrooms.

In his peak libertarian phase on 20/20, the ABC News program was frequently a Top 20 show, with an average of 13 million viewers an episode. Through his “Give Me A Break” segments and other high-profile special reports, Stossel – without challenge or balance – spread endless well-worn libertarian scare stories on topics ranging from teachers’ unions to the EPA to anti-tobacco regulators to minimum wage to Black civil rights activists, nut-picking the most fringe elements while building stories on anecdotal, fraudulent data and a black hole of libertarian sourcing.

On this episode, we trace today’s neoliberal, far-right toxic media back to Stossel’s brand of mainstream-laundered, libertarian “contrarianism.”

We are joined by Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

Guest

Jeff Cohen is a media critic, professor and lecturer. He founded Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) in 1986 and is also founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College and co-founder of the digital activism group, RootsAction. Jeff is the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media (2006).