John Stossel (born 1947) is an American television journalist for ABC.

Stossel began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon. His early years include consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City consumer editor at ABC's Good Morning America. Stossel later became an ABCNEWS correspondent, joining the weekly news magazine program 20/20 in 1981 and becoming its co-anchor in 2003.

In 1984, while filming a segment on wrestling, Stossel told wrestler Dr. D (Dave Schultz) he thought wrestling was fake. Schultz attacked Stossel, yelling "You think it's fake?" Stossel sued and won a $425,000 settlement. Schultz was fired by the WWF, but maintains he was ordered to attack Stossel.

In 20/20's "Give Me a Break" segment, he takes a skeptical look at subjects ranging from government regulations and pop culture to censorship and unfounded fear . "Give Me a Break" was so popular that in 1994, it was spun off into a series of one-hour specials. Topics of these specials include:

• "Family Fix: Help! I've Got Kids"
• "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?"
• "Is America Number 1?"
• "You Can't Say That!"
• "Love, Lust, and Marriage"
• "The Mystery of Happiness"
• "Junk Science: What You Know That May Not Be So"
• "The Blame Game"
• "Boys and Girls Are Different"
• "Freeloaders"
• "Greed"
• Larry Elder
• "Sex, Drugs and Consenting Adults".

Stossel's views have often been controversial, and he is one of the few libertarians in mainstream media.

Stossel was forced to apologize to his audience in 2000 after it was discovered that some of the research for a segment he ran discrediting organic foods was incorrect. [1] [2]

Awards

Stossel has won many awards, including 19 Emmy Awards. He has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Among his other awards are the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.

Stossel graduated from Princeton University with a BA in psychology in 1969.

Book

Stossel has written one book, Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media (ISBN 0060529148). This autobiography outlines Stossel's career, documenting his philosophical transition toward libertarianism and away from the liberal political stance of academia and journalism. It summarizes his opinions concerning the disasters of excessive regulation and government control, and his strong belief in the power of the free market and private enterprise, all presented in his signature down-to-earth style. In its conclusion he calls for a restoration of common sense and personal responsibility by limiting lawsuits, decreasing regulation and shifting social services away from the government and into the private sector.

External links

• ABC Biography
• Confessions of a Welfare Queen: How rich bastards like me rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars is an excerpt from Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.
• FAIR's John Stossel Archive - Critical responses to Stossel's reporting by the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.