Episode 72: John Stossel: Libertarian Billionaires' Inside Man
Citations Needed
Citations Needed
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2019
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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).
Transcript
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| 0:59.7 | Though he is mostly now a fixture on Fox News and Fox Business as well as fringe right-wing |
| 1:05.3 | media, in his heyday, libertarian pundit, John Stassel was a major staple of mainstream |
| 1:13.3 | media. |
| 1:14.5 | He had a weekly segment on ABC's 2020 as well as a number of hour long specials on that |
| 1:22.2 | network, as well as a widely distributed educational video series produced for tens of thousands |
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