By William Anderson
Ludwig von Mises Institue
August 16, 2000


For those of us who see television news and commentary as a
vast, statist wasteland, the work of John Stossel has been
welcome relief. Each week on the ABC show 20/20, Stossel has
his "Give Me a Break" segment in which he comments acerbically
on the latest follies of government regulation and taxation.

Stossel's brief commentary, along with the numerous shows he
does on the limitations of government, has earned him a large
following among conservatives and libertarians. It has also
earned him numerous enemies in television, government, and
among leftist groups. And like the conservative columnist Jeff
Jacoby, who was recently ousted from the Boston Globe, Stossel
finds his career in deep trouble because of an innocent error.

Earlier this year, Stossel twice broadcast a comparison of
fruits and vegetables grown "organically" (that is, with
manure as fertilizer) and that same produce grown by
conventional means with chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

(I saw one of those segments.) According to Stossel’s
research, the conventional produce was actually safer than the
organic stuff and was better for the environment. This was a
major challenge to environmentalist orthodoxy. However, as we
shall see, there was a small problem with what he said, and it
is that problem that has become the fig leaf covering the real
reason that some prominent people want Stossel’s scalp.
Before dealing with the aftermath of the broadcasts, we need
to first deal with whether or not the gist of what Stossel
said was true. Researchers looking into the differences
between organic and conventional produce actually did find
that manure-grown fruits and vegetables were five percent more
likely to contain some deadly organisms like e coli than the
conventional foods. This should hardly be surprising, as
manure provided for organic farms often goes untreated.

Furthermore, as Stossel accurately pointed out, organic
produce needs a third more land to grow the same amount of
fruits and vegetables as is grown conventionally. Since
agricultural runoff is a major source of water pollution, this
is no irrelevant statistic.

Stossel's analysis, however, lacked one component, that being
whether or not there was pesticide residue on the conventional
foods. His researcher said there was none, and like any
journalist, who depends upon the accuracy of his staff,
Stossel went with the story. However, it turned out that no
tests had been conducted. It was an honest mistake, and, in
reality, one that should have been irrelevant, since
toxicology has long shown that pesticides can easily be washed
from produce and that the tiny doses that might be left pose
absolutely no threat to human health.

Unfortunately, statists who have long seethed at Stossel’s
commentary have been able to leap onto this small glitch and
have turned it into a major anti-Stossel campaign. The ABC
News hierarchy has already suspended the researcher without
pay and Stossel’s critics are demanding that Stossel be fired,
despite the fact that he has already made a public correction
of his "error."

The stench of hypocrisy here is overwhelming. Leftist
journalists for years have trumpeted inaccurate information on
environmental issues for years. Time Magazine has even proudly
announced that it has renounced all journalistic "objectivity"
in its quest to convince its readers that we are in a life and
death environmental crisis. In other words, in modern
journalism good science does not matter when the environment
is at stake. Other news organizations are following the same
path. Therefore, since some of the targets of Stossel’s
criticism have been environmentalists and the outright
falsehoods they promote, it is not difficult to see why
Stossel has been in the crosshairs of leftists for many years.

(I wrote my doctoral dissertation on an economic view of
newspapers, and in my research found a number of anti-Stossel
diatribes, including one in the prestigious Columbia
Journalism Review. Stossel, according to this august
publication, was a promoter of falsehoods, half-truths, and
wrongheaded commentary. In other words, he was a heretic, and
heretics must be burned at the stake.)

It is important to examine the real reason that Stossel's
career currently is in jeopardy. Despite the "doctrine" that
others and I have been taught in journalism school, mainly
that the press is the "watchdog" of government, in reality the
press and government are true bedfellows. As the late
journalist Warren Brookes once commented, the media are not
interested in that "status quo," but rather the "statist quo."

Anyone who has worked in journalism can ready attest to the
truth of what Brookes said. All of the prized "beats" are in
covering government. At the newspaper where I began my career,
the business beat was seen as nothing more than glorified
public relations for big companies. We easily interacted with
officials at all levels of government, who seemed more honest
and open than the secretive and less approachable business
owners and managers. Multiply this by a thousandfold and a
clear picture emerges of the symbiotic relationship between
the press and government.

Because sources are the lifeblood of reporters, it becomes
easy to see why the press has turned into the biggest
cheerleader for the Leviathan State. Government needs the
press as a mouthpiece to trumpet all of the "gifts" it gives
to its subjects, and the press needs someone to quote, so the
marriage has been made complete. It is not surprising, then
that government will always provide more news sources than
will private enterprises, which must use product quality and
good service to draw customers, not leaks to the press.

In Stossel's case, he is considered to be even more of a
heretic than other conservative reporters and columnists. He
began his stint at ABC News as a "consumer reporter," whose
main task is to tell viewers of all the evils that private
enterprise has perpetrated upon them. (Stossel’s most famous
moment came when during an exposé on professional wrestling, a
well-known wrestler slapped the reporter to the floor twice.

Stossel later received a cash settlement from the wrestler.)

Consumer reporters especially depend upon government agencies
for their stories. For example, the "Today Show" has a regular
feature with top officials of the Consumer Products Safety
Commission to warn viewers of the many "unsafe" products that
businesses sell.

What journalists have found is that statism sells the news, as
long as it is cleverly packaged into something that promotes
the "I’m from the government and I’m here to help you"
message. Granted, news shows also give us stuff like "It’s
Your Money" in which some government "waste" is highlighted,
but mainstream journalists will never question the larger
premise that Americans need government to control nearly every
area of their lives.

Thus, by questioning his own original premises and by
demonstrating time and again how government intervention makes
things worse rather than better, Stossel has been the unending
target of his journalistic peers. It now looks as though they
have an issue with which to hang him. While every other
mainstream "news" organization has committed far worse sins
against the truth, Stossel has done something that is truly
unforgivable. He has exposed the hypocrisy of the media, and
for that there can be given no quarter until the man is
destroyed.

William Anderson, a Mises Institute adjunct scholars, teaches
economics at North Greenville College.