About - Stossel TV

People on the left and right believe government should promote good things, and discourage bad things. But that is a license for the control-freaks to stick their noises into everything we do.

—John Stossel

If we could just limit governments’ interference to protecting property rights, markets will work their magic and end most poverty.

—John Stossel

Politicians talk about allowing guns for hunting, but the right to keep and bear arms is not about letting some people shoot deer, it’s about letting all of us shoot criminals and tyrants.

—John Stossel

Government pretends it must have a place at the table, but free people ought to be able to eat without government permission.

—John Stossel

Life is fairer when individuals are free to make their own decisions.

—John Stossel

Those sweet words, "social justice”, really mean that the state gets to use force to take money from some people and give it to somebody else.

—John Stossel

When government takes your money and tries to create equality, everyone becomes poorer, and less free.

—John Stossel

Free speech matters. If we give in to those who would shut us up, the speech police will push and push until we have no freedom left.

—John Stossel

One can love nature but still hate the tyranny the green movement demands.

—John Stossel

I once viewed the marketplace as a cruel place, where we need intervention by government and lawyers to protect people. But after watching regulators work, I have come to believe that market competition is the best protector of consumers. Now I consider it my job to explain the near magical benefits of the free market.

—John Stossel

Competition gives us better cars, computers, movies, music… It would work for education too, if we’d just let it.

—John Stossel

Increased government control rarely helps people. It wrecks economies. It wrecks lives.

—John Stossel

We rarely help the poor by “spreading the wealth.” What works is economic freedom. When countries have it, people prosper.

—John Stossel

Government has no wealth of its own. Before it gives anything to anyone, it must take from those who produced it.

—John Stossel

When the state’s rules are wrong, ignore them through selective civil disobedience. Lets rebuild America without permission.

—John Stossel

If government were less important in our lives, politicians would have fewer goodies to trade. In return, we'd have more money, and more freedom.

—John Stossel

Let government make the decisions, we’ll have far fewer choices, or no choice at all.

—John Stossel

Why I created Stossel TV

I recently gave up my Fox TV show because I want to explain liberty and free markets to young people. Many don’t watch TV, but do watch short videos. I hope to reach them here.

I’ve been a reporter for 50 years. In my first job in Portland, Oregon, I helped invent TV consumer reporting. I moved to WCBS in NYC, then to 20/20 and Good Morning America on ABC.

As a consumer reporter, I exposed con men and thieves, confronting them with hidden camera footage that unmasked their lies. I put some out of business, and helped send the worst of them to jail. The Dallas Morning News called me “the most consistently thought-provoking TV reporter of our time.” The Orlando Sentinel said “he has the gift for entertaining while saying something profound.” My media colleagues awarded me 19 Emmys for criticizing business.

My epiphany, after years of reporting, was seeing that business does much less harm than big government. Competition keeps business in check much better than government regulators do.

We don’t need “experts” to manage our lives. We do need limited government, a referee that keeps the peace. That’s all. Then free minds and free markets make good things happen.

Now that I take a skeptical look at government, my media colleagues no longer give me awards. The mainstream media are tilted so far to the left, that they called me conservative.

I suppose they call me that because I now say the free market is a good thing — but what’s conservative about the market? It’s unplanned, unpredictable, scary, noisy. “Libertarian” is a better term for my beliefs.

After 28 years at ABC news, I left when 20/20 refused to air some of my segments about free markets.

Fox then gave me my own show, and never restricted what I could say. But after 7 years, I left to start this, Stossel TV, to reach more young people. I raised funds to open a little studio in Manhattan. We make at least one video per week. Each averages more than two million views.

I also started a non-profit to educate young people about free market ideas. About 10 million students a year now discuss liberty and free markets in class via Stossel in the Classroom run by former NYC high school teacher Rob Schimenz. In addition to the videos, there are teacher guides, online quizzes, contests, a Both Sides section with opposing views, info on how videos conform to state standards, and more. This video shows how it works.

You can help support both these ventures with a tax deductible donation to the non-profit Center For Independent Thought.