This '20/20' reporter ain't no Barbara Walters

On Tuesday, the Yale College Student Union brought popular ABC News correspondent John Stossel to campus for a speech entitled "Pandering to Fear: The Media's Crisis Mentality." But Stossel, whose conservative leanings have recently caused him to come under fire, focused on anything but the media. Instead, he dwelled on issues of big government and the free market, advocating the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and an end to federal regulation of the auto industry.

TOM ISLER/YH ABC reporter John Stossel chats with students before his YCSU talk, "Pandering to Fear: The Media's Crisis Mentality."

Stossel came under more scrutiny in August, when he was forced to apologize for inaccuracies in a report questioning the benefits of organic food. The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) deemed Stossel's report "biased against consumers and environmentalists." In a recent article, the online magazine Salon questioned whether Stossel was "a reporter or a right-wing apparatchik."

Stossel confronted these accusations in a recent interview with the Herald, and also talked to us about his life in journalism, his conservative views, and his opinion of the liberal mainstream media.

The Yale Herald: How did you get into journalism?

John Stossel: I fell into it. I was at Princeton, surrounded by all these people who knew exactly what they wanted to do with their lives, and I had no idea. I majored in psychology at Princeton because math and science were too hard, so it was basically either psychology or history. I planned on going to graduate school, but I was sick of college, so I figured working for a couple of years would make me appreciate school again. I interviewed for all the jobs I could, and I took the one that was farthest away—I viewed it as a free vacation. So, I ended up doing research for a TV station out in Portland, Ore. As it turns out, I never went back to school and I've been in the business ever since.

YH: What do you think the role of journalists is in a democratic society?

JS: Well it's funny. Since I never went to journalism school, I'll sort of have to wing this. I'm sure there's some journalism school answer. The way I see it, in a free society, the free flow of information is the best self-regulator. Journalists have a duty to sort the information out for the people so that they can self-govern.

YH: Do you find that it's difficult to maintain your independent, often conservative, perspective in the world of the "liberal media?"

JS: Well, yes. But conservative is a funny word, because I did a show called "Sex, Drugs and Consenting Adults" in which I argued that prostitution should be legal, that people should be able to sell their bodies for sex. I've done shows arguing that drugs should be legal, that homosexuality is natural. I'm contrarian, certainly. I like doing the stories that go against the [liberal media establishment], and it does cause tension.

YH: So have you run into resistance from either ABC or the larger media world?

JS: Yes, [I've run into resistance from both.] But ABC has been quite good, in that they put things on the air with which they might not agree. As one vice president told me, "I think you're full of shit, but you have an interesting intellectual argument and it deserves to be made."

YH: You have come under scrutiny for your ties to conservative and pro-business groups. Jeff Cohen, of the media group FAIR, described you as the "champion of the overdog." How do you respond to charges that you bring your own conservative "slant" to stories? Aren't journalists supposed to be purely objective?

JS: Many of the accusations against me are just wrong. Jeff Cohen has been attacking me for some time, and he just keeps repeating lies about me.

On the other hand, I clearly do have a point of view that's different from many other journalists and that deserves scrutiny. I would argue that everybody has biases—I'm just more clear about mine. I let the audience know that a lot of my reporting is point-of-view reporting. I mean, there's just so much said about me that's wrong, like calling me the "champion of the overdog." For twenty years I was a consumer reporter and I attacked corporations. I had a point of view then. I would say "Corporation XYZ sucks," or "XYZ is ripping people off."

And then I got a little smarter, and I started to look at who really rips off the consumer. And businesses, because they can't use force, are very limited as to how much they can rip you off. They can trick you, but the tricksters don't get that rich. The people who make money are the ones who give consumers what they want. The people who really seem to be squandering lots of consumers' money are the people who get to use force, and that's government and the lawyers. I just thought, "Few people are doing point of view reporting on these issues." So I switched.

And since then, I've been vilified as a "conservative" or an "overdog supporter," and I don't think that's fair. I think free markets and freedom help everyone, including the underdog.

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