[339] in libertarians
Stossel Article
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Thu Oct 27 10:27:04 1994
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 10:18:13 -0400
From: vimrich@flying-cloud.mit.edu (Vernon Imrich)
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Cc: objectivism@MIT.EDU
A fwd:
Stossel resists
lemming leaps
media pack
by Pete Schulberg
of The Oregonian staff
NEW YORK - I might as well have wandered into a Manhattan time machine.
There, standing behind his desk in a cramped, little office - making fun of
my gray hair - was a guy who absolutely refuses to age. ABC News
correspondent John Stossel - he of "20/20" fame and the nation's premiere TV
consumer reporter - looks pretty much as he did 20 years ago as a raw recruit
with Portland's KGW (8). Eventually, he carved out a niche for himself as the
country's first full-time, local TV news consumer reporter. It was a path
that led to the networks.
But he didn't have much consumer advice for me when I asked him what he does
to stay young. "I play volleyball," offered the 19-time Emmy nominee. Well,
if that's the secret, set up the net and give me a crash course in spiking.
Though Stossel's appearance hasn't changed since those days at KGW, his
outlook on consumerism - and society in general - has. He shares his
politically incorrect attitude in his second prime-time special - "The Blame
Game: Are We a Country of Victims?" The show, one of nine specials featuring
Stossel scheduled for the next three years, airs Wednesday night.
Stossel argues that, thanks in large part to unnecessary government laws and
regulations, we refuse to accept responsibility for what happens to us.
That's a shift for Stossel. Like most other consumer reporters who warn
viewers about the latest frauds and scams, he first envisioned government's
role as the great protector of wimpy consumers against big, bad business.
I remember one of Stossel's first reports on KGW, about the dangers of hot
dogs. Although he was referring to all hot dogs, Stossel happened to hold up
a package of Safeway hot dogs smack in front of the camera for all to see.
Safeway pulled all its commercials off the air and created quite a stir,
because it was one of the station's biggest advertisers.
Since then, Stossel has drawn the wrath of advertisers and lawyers alike,
having been sued no less than a dozen times. Only one suit came to trial - a
Philadelphia dentist, whom Stossel had drilled in a story, lost his case
against ABC.
"I started out (in my career) by viewing the marketplace as a cruel place,
where you need intervention by lawyers and government to protect people,"
Stossel said. "But after watching the regulators work, I have come to believe
that markets are magical and are the best protectors of the consumer. It is
my job to explain the beauties of the free market."
Wednesday's special is an extension of Stossel's rationale: Government
regulation has unintended consequences - mostly bad. "The argument of the
special," Stossel explains, "is that the U.S. government has created systems
to encourage victimhood."
Stossel talks to drug addicts who use their "disability" status to collect
$600 a month, which they freely admit is used to buy drugs. He examines how
people, with the help of money-hungry lawyers, can successfully claim an odd
assortment of disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act - and in
the process win multi-million-dollar settlements.
In probably the most controversial segment, Stossel focuses on whether
problems involving black Americans have more to do with a "victim mentality"
then with white racism, and whether the welfare system creates more harm than
good.
Not exactly your typical prime-time fare. But neither was Stossel's first
special last April. "Are We Scaring Ourselves To Death?" - which turned the
tables on sensationalist media - captured big ratings and earned critical
acclaim. Instead of dwelling on plane crashes, pesticides and even crime,
Stossel argued that the media should be zeroing in on the most probable
causes of death - such as smoking and poverty.
"We should put things in perspective," he said. "We scare people over trivial
risks and hype the trivial dangers, but that's distracting from the real
dangers."
What Stossel is doing, of course, is going against the journalistic pack -
which he is quick to bemoan: "We in the press run around like a mindless
pack, and we should stop doing that."
But Stossel left the pack a long time ago. And he hasn't looked back.
Pete Schulberg's column appears in the Living section. He can be reached by
phone at 221-8562, by fax at 294-4026 or by mail at 1320 S.W. Broadway,
Portland, Ore. 97201.
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