Why Did You Leave ABC? John Stossel: “Because It Sucked There”

By Nicholas Stix

I first saw John Stossel on CBS' New York station during the mid-1970s. I think he may have been a consumer affairs reporter. He doidn’t make a huge impression.

Then I went off to college here, and then to West Germany, came back in ’85, and bought my first (used) TV set in April ’86, while I was in grad school. At some point during the late 1980s I saw my first John Stossel special on ABC. These were news department documentaries, but they were different than anything anyone else on TV was doing.

I only recall one of his specials from the early-to-mid 1990s, on feminists’ campus date rape hoax. White feminists were screaming “No means no!” So, Stossel interviews a group of 10 or so college-age black girls, and asks them about “No means no!” Well, every single one of them denies it! They all agree that “‘No’ doesn’t necessarily mean no.” They said that a good girl will say “No,” not because she doesn’t want to have sex. She wants it, but she doesn’t want to look like a slut for saying, “Yes.”

He was also a contributor for a time to 20/20, with Barbara Walters, which I only rarely watched. I once thought a segment Stossel did (during the mid 1990s?) on I don’t recall what topic (maybe environmentalists) was very good. As soon as it was over, Barbara Walters condemned it, right to his face at the long counter they shared. I’d never seen such unprofessional behavior on air. And she gave no specific criticisms for her condemnation. Barbara Wah-Wah was so powerful on the show and at the network, that Stossel had to sit and take it.

 

 

John Stossel left ABC because it was ‘hostile’ to libertarian ideas
By Allen McDuffee
April 12, 2012
The Washington Post

When John Stossel joined Fox Business Network and Fox News in 2009, it wasn’t because he had a job offer. “I went over and begged, ‘Please hire me. I can’t stand it anymore,’ ” said Stossel in an interview with the Heritage Foundation’s Rob Bluey.

Stossel said he left “because it sucked there.” He went on to describe a working condition where ABC “tolerated him for years” and “held their noses,” but by the end Stossel said he was looking for the closest door.

Stossel, a self-identified libertarian who spent nearly 30 years working on ABC’s 20/20 news magazine program, says that ABC was “hostile to these [libertarian] ideas that made us prosperous and I consider so important.”

Stossel also spoke about his book, “No They Can’t: Why Government Fails — But Individuals Succeed.”