A Conversation With John Stossel
John Stossel: I watched the liberal solutions fail. I came out of college at the time that the War on Poverty was beginning, and my professors had taught me, “Look, it’s despicable, in this rich country, that some people are so poor, and we can fix this with the right programs.” I totally believed... But then, as a young reporter in Portland, Oregon, I watched those programs not work, that they would give people money or training, and the training was lousy, and the people who got money now were classifying themselves as victims, and they were mad because they weren’t getting more money, or the next guy was getting more money. And of course, there were the disincentives because you got less money if you were married than if you were a single mom, so when the welfare worker would come by, married moms would just get the man out of the house. And the government solutions always had these unintended side effects, and they were worse, so, the liberal media I’d been drinking no longer made sense. I started reading conservative media, but they seemed to want to go to war with everybody and police the bedroom – I didn’t like that either. And then, I discovered Reason magazine, a libertarian magazine, and that was a shock that, “Oh, my god, here are these people who understand this sensible philosophy much better than I do, and I want to learn more about that.” And I became a born-again free-market zealot. Dan Ferris: Do you think libertarians are making any ground? Do you think we’re influencing anybody, politically? John Stossel: Well, anybody is an easy
And the government solutions always had these unintended side effects, and they were worse, complicated things in entertaining ways, and I got pretty good ratings, so they kept me. They hired me as a consumer reporter, and I was bashing businesses, and they of course liked that. And when I finally woke up and saw the government does more damage than business ever does, and focused on pointing out the excesses of government, they did not like that. But they wanted to keep me, and I just fought to do those stories. And eventually, they didn’t like them anymore [laughs] , I wouldn’t do it anymore, and that’s when I left for Fox. But I was there 28 years, and I was a libertarian maybe for 15 of them, and, you know, half the stories I wanted to do, they let me do. Dan Ferris: You said 15 of those 28 years you were a libertarian. After 13 years, what happened? What made John Stossel become a libertarian? so, the liberal media I’d been drinking no longer made sense. Dan Ferris: The first time I saw you on TV and you were reporting on some libertarian-themed idea, I thought, “Well, this is a fluke, I’ll never see him again.” But then you became the libertarian guy on TV. How did you last so long, reporting libertarian themes? John Stossel: Well, they didn’t like it. I was good at doing TV news stories, and I could make things interesting and explain
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July 2020
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