Episode 72: John Stossel: Libertarian Billionaires' Inside Man
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 \u201ceducational\u201d 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 \u201cGive Me A Break\u201d segments and other high-profile special reports, Stossel \u2013 without challenge or balance \u2013 spread endless well-worn libertarian scare stories on topics ranging from teachers\u2019 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\u2019s neoliberal, far-right toxic media back to Stossel\u2019s brand of mainstream-laundered, libertarian \u201ccontrarianism.\u201d
We are joined by Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).