John Stossel

Credentials

Background

John Stossel is the former host of Fox Business’ Stossel and ABC‘s 20/20. Stossel joined the libertarian Reason Foundation in 2016/2017 where he hosts “Stossel on Reason” which airs online.³

Stossel left Fox to focus on the “new media”⁴ by switching to YouTube as his primary broadcast platform. He launched Stossel TV and began working with the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank heavily funded by the Koch brothers.⁵ Stossel became an “educator”⁶with the Charles Koch Institute‘s Media and Journalism Fellowship program.⁷

“I’m moving on because I want to create a new libertarian internet-based platform with Reason TV and become an educator with the Charles Koch Institute’s new Media and Journalism Fellowship program. I will still make appearances on Fox News,” Stossel annnounced in a 2016 article at Fox News.⁸

Stossel originally joined Fox Business Network (FBN) in 2009, and also regularly appeared on Fox News Channel to provide a “signature libertarian analysis.” Before joining Fox, Stossel co-anchored ABC‘s 20/20 program. Earlier in his career, Stossel was consumer editor for Good Morning America, and a reporter for WCBS–TV in New York.⁹

Stossel formerly hosted a series called “Green Tyranny” on Fox News, where he claimed “environmentalists collude with the EPA to block economic progress.” A Fox News description for the show read as follows:¹⁰

“Hollywood and the media push green propaganda. Kids fear global warming will kill them.
“The globe, in fact, is warming. But so what? Climate changes! America can adjust to that. But academics who dare say that are shunned as heretics.
“Americans are told that fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas – are evil. But much of civilization owes its existence to fossil fuels.

In 2001, media watchdog FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) criticized Stossel for his coverage of global warming in his documentary Tampering with Nature. According to FAIR, Stossel used “highly selective […] information that gave center stage to three dissenters from among the 2,000 members of the UN‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently released a report stating that global temperatures are rising almost twice as fast as previously thought.”¹¹

John Stossel & Koch

John Stossel’s company, JFS Productions¹² was a top contractor for the Charles Koch Institute among other Koch-funded organizations, researcher Connor Gibson discovered after reviewing IRS filings in 2020.¹³

JFS Productions was contracted for approximately $500,000 to do media services for the Charles Koch Institute each year since 2017.

Other foundations who have received Koch funding and took on JFS Productions as a contractor included the Reason Foundation and the Center for Independent Thought, where Stossel is a director. The Center for Independent Thought is also the “parent foundation” for Stossel TV, Stossel in the Classroom, and NBTV.¹⁴

View the funding breakdown below:

Foundation	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	Grand Total
Charles Koch Institute	$500,065	$541,658	$499,992			$1,541,715
Reason Foundation			$500,000			$500,000
Center for Independent Thought				$158,339	$183,344	$341,683
Grand Total	$500,065	$541,658	$999,992	$158,339	$183,344	$2,383,398

Sources: Charles Koch Institute 2019 990, Charles Koch Institute 2018 990, Charles Koch Institute 2017 990, Reason Foundation 2019 990, Center for Independent Thought 2020 990, Center for Independent Thought 2021 990

Charles Koch’s foundations also separately donated hundreds of thousands to Stossel’s nonprofit, the Center for Independent Thought. View the Centre’s recent 990 forms below.

In addition to the funding, Stossel lists JFS Productions as holding the copyright to articles favourable to Koch. Examples include a 2017 op-ed in the Lakeland Times responding to a “smear” of David and Charles Koch.¹⁵

Stossel also wrote a piece that was eventually published with Fox News, where Stossel noted his connection: “I should disclose that I’ve spent time with both David and Charles Koch. They’ve paid me to speak at a few of their events. I happily took the money and gave it to charities,” he said.¹⁶

“I wish the Kochs spent more on politics. They promote a message we don’t hear often enough,” Stossel concluded.

The Center for Independent Thought also gave $400,000 to the Cato Institute from 2019 to 2021 — the foundation’s only grants in those years. Stossel has featured Cato Institute staff on his show in the past.¹⁷

John Stossel & Tobacco

According to a search of the Tobacco Industry Documents Library, Stossel’s reporting on smoking as part of ABC‘s 20/20 piqued the interest of the tobacco industry,¹⁸ especially an episode where Stossel covered “Junk Science.”¹⁹

Philip Morris’s (PM) Thomas J. Borelli sent an email to PM colleagues regarding Stossel’s program noting that “the issues of weak association epidemiology and the problems associated with government funding will be discussed” and “I’ll keep you posted when we get more information.”²⁰

In 1996, a PM representative sent a recommendation for an “expert” for Stossel to feature on the show to talk about secondhand smoke, which the letter’s author admitted would be “controversial.” The letter does not name this expert.²¹

As noted by Media Matters, Stossel has said that “there is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people.”²²

In 1994, Stossel was critical of tobacco settlements which would force the industry to pay out millions of dollars. “It’s not tobacco executives who will pay,” Stossel claimed. “It’s today’s smokers who are paying for the deal.”²³

Stossel’s name appears on a 1998 “Third Party Message Development Contact List,” in a document stored at the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library,“²⁴ and in a 1995 tobacco litigation “PR Response” plan, where he is on a list of “sympathetic/appropriate news reporters.”²⁵

“Stossel in the Classroom”

As reported by Greenpeace, a group called the Center for Independent Thought (CIT) owns and operates “Stossel in the Classroom,” a series of study aides including some of Stossel’s news reports.²⁶ The program initially featured study guides written by professors at the Koch-funded George Mason University. CIT itself has received at least $235,000 from Koch foundations from 2007 to 2014.²⁷

Greenpeace notes that CIT also operates as a “pass-through” for grants to other libertarian groups including the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, and Atlas Economic Research Foundation (CIT is also an Atlas Network member ²⁸) how CIT is obscuring an increasing amount of its own funding through “dark money funnels” like DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.²⁹

According to the CIT website, Stossel in the Classroom is a “division” of CIT that “distributes free DVDs and streaming videos from popular TV journalist John Stossel to middle school and high school classrooms across the Americas.”³⁰

Stance on Climate Change

September 13, 2017

Writing at the Reason Foundation, Stossel claims that climate change did not make hurricanes Irma or Havey worse, and that we “don’t know” if humans are to blame:³¹

“Of course climate change is real! Climate changes—it always has and always will. For the past 300 years, since ‘the little ice age,’ the globe warmed about three degrees. The warming started well before man emitted much carbon.
“So the real unanswered questions are:
1. Will climate change become a crisis? (We face immediate crises now: poverty, terrorism, a $20 trillion debt, rebuilding after the hurricanes)
2. Is there anything we can do about it? (No. Not now; the science isn’t there yet.)
3. Did man’s burning fossil fuels increase the warming? (Probably. But we don’t know how much.)
I resent how the alarmists mix these questions, pretending all the science is settled.”

June 14, 2015

“The climate models that got the government so excited are totally wrong so far,” Stossel claimed on an issue of Green Tyranny later adding that “a few degrees warming might be good” because “cold waves kill many more people than heat waves.”³²

April 20, 2007

Stossel published an article titled “The Global Warming Myth” at ABC News, which contained excerpts from his book “Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity”:³³

MYTH: Global warming will cause huge disruptions in climate, more storms, and the coasts will flood! America must sign the Kyoto Treaty!
This has to be broken into four pieces.
MYTH No. 1: The Earth is warming!
TRUTH: The Earth is warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the global average surface temperature increased about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the 20th century.
MYTH No. 2: The Earth is warming because of us!
TRUTH: Maybe. The frantic media suggest it’s all about us. But the IPCC only said it is likely that we have increased the warming.
Our climate has always undergone changes. Greenland was named Greenland because its coasts used to be very green. It’s presumptuous to think humans’ impact matters so much in comparison to the frightening geologic history of the earth. And who is to say that last year’s temperature is the perfect optimum? Warmer may be better! More people die in cold waves than heat waves.
MYTH No. 3: There will be storms, flooded coasts and huge disruptions in climate!
TRUTH: There are always storms and floods. Will there be much bigger disruptions in climate? Probably not.

Key Quotes

November 19, 2020

Stossel wrote at the Standard-Examiner:³⁴

“As we’ve been exposed to more plastics, pesticides, mysterious chemicals, food additives and new technologies, we live longer than ever!
“That’s why I’m skeptical when I’m told: Climate change is a crisis!
“Climate change is real. It’s a problem, but I doubt that it’s ‘an existential threat.’”

July 19, 2017

Stossel announced his new project, Stossel TV, to be broadcast on his YouTube channel as opposed to traditional media. In the announcement, Stossel said because he started criticizing government, ABC news “didn’t love it” so he moved to Fox News, but he “fought with people there too.”³⁵

“I’ll fight the central planners. I’ll show you the waste in government. […] I’m a libertarian. I’ve learned that life works best when individuals are free to make our own choices and government governs best when it governs less. But that libertarian idea gets squeezed out by the louder voices in the old media. Shut up! I’m sick of them. Where’s the thoughtful debate? So that’s why I’m going to the new media: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. For the next chapter of my career I’ll report from here. on Reason TV and Stossel TV,” Stossel said.

December 4, 2014

As reported by Media Matters, in an issue of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, Stossel claimed the science behind the dangers of secondhand smoke aren’t settled (emphasis added):³⁶

“Take cigarette smoking. Yeah, they kill smokers. But there is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people. Nevertheless, banned – I don’t smoke,” Stossel said.

April 4, 2013

In an episode of “Green Tyranny,” Stossel declared:³⁷

“So, why do I use the phrase ‘green tyranny’? Because government always goes too far. Years ago, when I heard some animals were going extinct, I thought the endangered species act was a great idea.

But in the hands of government lawyers, and environmental zealots, it’s become an instrument of petty tyranny.

Frogs, prairie dogs, beetles, take priority over people.”

Key Actions

June 12, 2021

Stossel wrote an article at the Fremont News Messenger complaining that a video he had released “in which some climate scientists argue climate change is not a ‘crisis'” was no longer shown in Facebook because “Emmanuel Vincent suddenly called it ‘partially false.'”³⁸

The video, according to Stossel, also suggested “America can adjust to rising sea levels by building dikes and doing other things like Holland has” and the video “also questioned the claim that hurricanes have gotten stronger.”

“It’s absurd that Facebook lets Climate Feedback censor me because of something that might happen in 1,000 years,” Stossel wrote, adding the hurricane claim “‘Misleads viewers,’ said Climate Feedback.”

“Maybe, someday, skepticism about climate change being a ‘crisis’ will prove foolish. But we don’t know that today. It’s a question that deserves debate, not censorship,” Stossel wrote, adding: “Someone should respond to climate alarmism, because people are terrified.”

November 19, 2020

Stossel wrote an article at the Standard-Examiner titled “The climate hustle” where he criticized Joe Biden’s comments that he would spend billions of dollars to fight an “existential threat to life.”³⁹

“Maybe you accepted the phrase I used above: ‘America’s cancer epidemic.’,” Stossel wrote. “But there is no cancer epidemic. Cancer rates are down. We simply live long enough to get diseases like cancer. But people think there’s a cancer epidemic.”
“The opposite is true. As we’ve been exposed to more plastics, pesticides, mysterious chemicals, food additives and new technologies, we live longer than ever!
“That’s why I’m skeptical when I’m told: Climate change is a crisis!
“Climate change is real. It’s a problem, but I doubt that it’s ‘an existential threat.’”

In the article, Stossel also promoted Marc Morano‘s film Climate Hustle 2, which he also promoted in a video. Stossel had appeared in a “special climate panel” following the live online release of the movie where Morano had asked him “how the news media became so complicit in the climate scare.” In his op-ed, Stossel commented:

“I like watching Morano point out celebrities’ hypocrisy, but think one claim in his movie goes too far.

“‘Stopping climate change is not about saving the planet,’ says narrator Kevin Sorbo. ‘It’s about climate elites trying to convince us to accept a future where they call all the shots.’
“I push back at Morano: ‘I think they are genuinely concerned, and they want to save us.’
“’Their vision of saving us is putting them in charge,’ he replies.
“And if they’re in charge, he says, they will destroy capitalism.”

September 24, 2020

Stossel appeared in a “special climate panel” as part of Marc Morano’s 2020 film Climate Hustle 2: Rise of the Climate Monarchy, produced by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). When asked by Morano, “why do you think the climate issue is different? Why does CNN not allow them [climate science deniers] on? Why do they just essentially ban climate deniers and not legitimize them by airtime?” Stossel responded:⁴⁰

“The media’s changed. CNN and the Times now are just hard left young people with an agenda.”

Stossel added:

“CNN says we’re all going to die from climate [sic]. It gives you a little more of what they think you will stay an inch longer for. And that gives confirmation bias. So if you think the world’s going to end, you get more information that says the world’s going to end and you get alarmed.”

September 23, 2019

Stossel hosted a Heartland Institute panel discussion in New York City featuring Patrick Michaels, David Legates, and Willie Soon. The event was live-streamed to coincide with the UN’s Climate Summit and was announced with the tag line: “It’s time for both sides to make the case: What is happening to our climate and what can we do about it?”⁴¹

2017

In 2017, Stossel repurposed one of his prior videos where he interviewed climate change deniers Patrick Michaels and Judith Curry as part of a free DVD series for “Stossel in the Classroom.” Video below, via Internet Archive.⁴²

The full list of Stossel in the Classroom segments includes a number of videos from his “Green Tyranny” series,⁴³ including one on “Environmental Fear Mongering” featuring Marc Morano⁴⁴ and one titled “A Case for Fossil Fuels” featuring fossil fuel proponent Alex Epstein.⁴⁵

“Propaganda: Environmental Fear Mongering”

“The Energy Debate: A Case for Fossil Fuels”

This video is now listed as “Private” on YouTube and was not captured in the Internet Archive.

June 14, 2015

Stossel featured climate change deniers Patrick Michaels, Judith Curry, and Alex Epstein on the June 2016 edition of “Green Tyranny.”⁴⁶

Stossel: “The real question is, is it dangerous? Is it going to harm people?”
Michaels: “Exactly.”
Stossel: “There’s not a 99% consensus on that.”
Michaels: “Of course there’s not.”

“The climate models that got the government so excited are totally wrong so far,” Stossel claimed during the show. “A few degrees warming might be good,” he suggested, because “cold waves kill many more people than heat waves.”⁴⁷

August 28, 2014

Stossel featured guest Jay Lehr, who Greenpeace’s Polluterwatch noted once served prison time for falsifying time sheets at the EPA. On the show, Lehr described the EPA as “fraudulent” in its estimates of pollution that would impact public health like particulate matter from coal pollution. Jay Lehr now serves as Science Director at the corporate-funded Heartland Institute.⁴⁸

February 2007

Stossel presented a two-hour feature titled “Worried in America” with ABC. “You know little has changed since then [12 years ago], said Stossel. “The press still leaps on every scare from global warming to shark attacks to vaccines causing autism to children being kidnapped.”⁴⁹

The Cato Institute promoted the program, noting that the February 23 edition would feature American Enterprise Institute (AEI) adjunct fellow Veronique de Rugy and John Mueller of the Cato Institute.⁵⁰

July 5, 2006

Stossel interviewed climate change deniers John R. Christy and Sallie Baliunas. In the interview, Stossel claimed that “The fundamentalist doom-mongers ignore scientists who say the effects of global warming may be benign.”⁵¹

June 29, 2001

Stossel aired a one-hour special on ABC titled Tampering with Nature where he portrayed environmentalists as “preachers of doom and gloom” who would have us “running around naked, hungry for food, maybe killing a rabbit with a rock, then dying young, probably before age 40,” the media watchdog group FAIR reported.⁵²

According to FAIR, Stossel used “highly selective […] information that gave “center stage to three dissenters from among the 2,000 members of the UN‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently released a report stating that global temperatures are rising almost twice as fast as previously thought.”

“Stossel’s discussion of global warming was highly selective in the information it presented. Instead of reporting the increasingly strong scientific consensus on global warming, Stossel chose to highlight the views of so-called ‘skeptics,’ giving center stage to three dissenters from among the 2,000 scientists of the UN‘s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which recently released a report stating that global temperatures are rising almost twice as fast as previously thought,” the FAIR report noted.

“To back up the skeptics’ claims, Stossel presents the infamous and debunked Oregon Petition as evidence: “You may have heard that 1,600 scientists signed a letter warning of ‘devastating consequences.’ But I bet you hadn’t heard that 17,000 scientists signed a petition saying there’s ‘no convincing evidence’ that greenhouse gases will disrupt the Earth’s climate,” Stossel had claimed.

April 4, 2000

Stossel was listed as a speaker at a National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) “distinguished luncheon series” event. His talk was titled “Pandering to Fear: The Media’s Crisis Mentality.”⁵³

April 1997

The Reason Foundation’s senior editor RJacob Sullum interviewed Stossel. During the interview, Stossel said that the Reason Foundation had helped shaped his thinking after he graduated Princeton.⁵⁴

“I would read The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and nobody was saying any of these things. But then I found REASON, and read In Pursuit, by Charles Murray. I realized there were other people who were talking about these things, and there was an intellectual basis for what I was feeling,” Stossel said.

February 7, 1996

John Stossel presented on “the media’s crisis mentality” in a conference on “Junk Science & The Courts” by the Manhattan Institute, according to records in the tobacco industry documents library.⁵⁵

In his discussion, Stossel claimed that toxic waste dumps and pesticides aren’t hurting anyone:

“As I think Michael Fumento said, there is no good evidence that these [toxic waste] dumps are hurting anybody, it’s in the ground. […]
Pesticide residues, again good scientists say there is no evidence that anybody has their life shortened by the residues that we consume on pesticides.”

He concludes that “we have to reorient the debate if we’re going to go forward and compete in the world if scare mongers in my business, fueled by junk scientists who often seem to go unchallenged continue to get away with what they’re doing.”

September 12, 1996

According to an archived transcript, via tobacco industry documents, Stossel was a speaker at the Federalist Society‘s “National Conference on Civil Justice and the Litigation Process.”⁵⁶

Stossel noted in his speech that ABC was reluctant to give him his “John Stossel specials” which he specified “are not 20/20.”

“They have surprised ABC and done well. […] And they only give it to me because the market worked,” Stossel said, according to the transcript.

He then talked about how regulation “suffocates the economy.” He added, “The more I watched the market work, the more clear it was that it was so much more efficient and flexible and cheap and quick than the government-imposed solutions.”

In in his talk, which focused on litigation as per the conference theme, described lawyers as “vultures” in cases like lawsuits against the asbestos industry:

“The people who end up paying are the innocent, the little old ladies who own the pension funds who own the companies now. The so-called bad guys are long gone. The lawyers come in like vultures after the beach is dead.”

While Stossel admits there is proof “that if you smoked cigarettes and were exposed to high levels of industrial asbestos, it would give you these horrible diseases,” he still questions the link between second-hand smoking and cancer:

“[T]here is very little proof that if you didn’t smoke, that it would or that the low levels that many people are suing over now are hurting anybody,” Stossel said.

He then argues that poverty is a bigger killer, and that when an asbestos factory closes “people are thrown out of work. People are made poor. That kills people too.”

March 1995

Stossel was a keynote speaker at a “10th Anniversary Benefit” event hosted by the Heartland Institute and with tables paid for by tobacco and oil industry groups including Phillip Morris and the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation.⁵⁷

“Gold Tables” included:

Philip Morris Management Co.
Procter & Gamble
Golden Rule Insurance Co. (ALEC Member)
David H. Padden
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
Chlorine Chemistry Council/Vinyl Institute
Chevron USA

1994

According to archived documents, John Stossel was a speaker at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) “National Orientation Conference” in 2014.⁵⁸

Affiliations

Publications

Stossel has published 3 books:

Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media, Harper Perennial, 2005.
Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know Is Wrong, Hyperion, 2007
No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails – But Individuals Succeed, Threshold Editions, April 2012.

Other Resources

John Stossel – SourceWatch.
John Stossel – Wikipedia.
Andrew Krosofsky. “John Stossel Has Made a Career of Denying Climate Change,” Green Matters, October 11, 2021.
“Center for Independent Thought,” Polluterwatch, August 29, 2014.

Resources

1
“Honorary Doctorate to John Stossel,” Newmedia UFM, January 14, 2008. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/gfdEM
2
“John Stossel,” Fox Business. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ugM8S
3
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
4
“Launch of Stossel TV,” YouTube video uploaded by user “John Stossel,” July 19, 2017. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
5
“The Reason Foundation,” Greenpeace. Accessed January 7, 2018.
6
John Stossel. “John Stossel: What a skating rink can tell us about life (and government),” Fox News, December 14, 2016. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Ate2y
7
“Welcome John Stossel,” Charles Koch Institute. Archived November 23, 2020. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/gsEzb
8
John Stossel. “John Stossel: What a skating rink can tell us about life (and government),” Fox News, December 14, 2016. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Ate2y
9
“John Stossel,” Fox Business. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ugM8S
10
“Green Tyranny with John Stossel,” Fox News, June 14, 2015. Archived December 28, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/mezFx
11
“Stossel Tampers with the Facts,” FAIR, July 17, 2001. Archived September 22, 2001. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/4hr5f
12
”JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.” OpenCorporates. Data via New York Department of State.
13
“John Stossel is Rolling in Koch Money,”Grassrootbeer Investigations, December 22, 2020. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/VZoJd
14
Center for Independent Thought homepage. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/AcWEI
15
John Stossel. “WORST OF TIMES,” Lakeland Times, January 17, 2017. Archived March 11, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/9YkxA
16
John Stossel. “Why I wish the Koch brothers spent even more money on politics,” Fox News, January 12, 2017. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/YFiGG
17
“David Boaz gives post‐election analysis on FBN’s Stossel,” Cato Institute, November 7, 2012. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
18
“John Stossel and tobacco settlements,” July 21, 2000. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078852444-2078852444A.
19
Thomas Borelli. “ABC/John Stossel,” April 29, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078372134.
20
Thomas Borelli. “ABC/John Stossel,” April 29, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078372134.
21
“John Stossel ‘Junk Science’ Special,” May 21, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2063346768.
22
Brian Powell. “Fox’s John Stossel Thinks Secondhand Smoke Isn’t Deadly,” Media Matters, December 4, 2014. Archived January 7. 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8gTrc
23
Unedited transcript, June 4, 1999. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078706397A-2078706403.
24
THIRD PARTY MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT CONTACT LIST,” October 1998. Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2078212310-2078212322.
25
“Tobacco Litigation – Public Attitudes: PR Response,” Covington Burling, April 1995. Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2065574079-2065574086.
26
David Mastio. “Prime-time propagandist,” Salon, February 25, 2000. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/JVOAP
27
“Center for Independent Thought: Stossel in the Classroom,” Greenpeace. Accessed January 8, 2018.
28
“Center for Independent Thought” Atlas Network. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/YzhAk). Media Matters also documented
29
“The Right-Wing Money Putting John Stossel In School Classrooms,” Media Matters, February 25, 2013. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/aLqgU
30
Homepage, Center for Independent Thought. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL:https://archive.is/wmAq7
31
John Stossel. “The Climate Alarmists Are Wrong,” Reason, September 13, 2017. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/LtSBf
32
“Stossel 2015 06 14 SPECIAL Green Tyranny,” YouTube video uploaded by user “YoungRothbard,” March 17, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
33
John Stossel. “The Global Warming Myth?“ ABC News, April 20, 2007. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/7DQX
34
“Stossel: The climate hustle,” Standard-Examiner, November 19, 2020. Archived November 23, 2020.
35
“Launch of Stossel TV,” YouTube video uploaded by user “John Stossel,” July 19, 2017. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
36
Brian Powell. “Fox’s John Stossel Thinks Secondhand Smoke Isn’t Deadly,” Media Matters, December 4, 2014. Archived January 7. 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8gTrc
37
“John Stossel – Green Tyranny: In The Name of Protecting The Earth 4/04/13,” YouTube video uploaded by user “selfownership1,” April 27, 2013. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
38
John Stossel. “John Stossel: Climate censors’ ‘fact checks’ are not about facts,” Fremont News Messenger, June 12, 2021. Archived October 18, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/rQuQE
39
“Stossel: The climate hustle,” Standard-Examiner, November 19, 2020. Archived November 23, 2020.
40
Climate Hustle 2: Rise of the Climate Monarchy. CFACT/ CDR Communications, Inc., 2020
41
“Climate Challenge: Bright Lights, Big City … Bigger Debate,” Heartland Institute, September 13, 2019. Archived September 13, 2019. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/M7XlQ. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
42
“(2017 DVD) Pseudo Consensus – The Global Warming Debate,” YouTube video uploaded by “StosselClassroomDVDs” on July 28, 2016.
43
“VIDEO LIBRARY,” Stossel in the Classroom. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/pKHUg
44
“PROPAGANDA: ENVIRONMENTAL FEAR MONGERING,” Stossel in the Classroom. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/f2ggz
45
“THE ENERGY DEBATE: A CASE FOR FOSSIL FUELS,” Stossel in the Classroom. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/YruSp
46
“Stossel 2015 06 14 SPECIAL Green Tyranny,” YouTube video uploaded by user “YoungRothbard,” March 17, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
47
“Stossel 2015 06 14 SPECIAL Green Tyranny,” YouTube video uploaded by user “YoungRothbard,” March 17, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
48
Connor Gibson. “MAN WHO DEFRAUDED EPA CALLS EPA ‘FRAUDULENT’ ON FOX,” Polluterwatch, August 29, 2014. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/PFIKp
49
“ABC’s Stossel: Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself,” NewsMax, February 22, 2007. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/EFZkz
50
Thomas A. Firey. “Scared Stiff? Watch John Stossel,” Cato Institute, February 23, 2007. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/F9Rdf
51
John Stossel. “A Convenient Lie,” Real clear Politics, July 5, 2006. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/94ax
52
“Stossel Tampers with the Facts,” FAIR, July 17, 2001. Archived September 22, 2001. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/4hr5f
53
Think Tanks Network Vol. 11, Issue 12 (March 24, 2000). Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library. Bates no. 2078876628-2078876638.
54
“Risky Journalism,” Reason, April 1997. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/X1AcF
55
“Junk Science & The Courts,” Nation-Wide Reporting Coverage, February 7, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Industry Documents Library. Bates No. 190204128-190204161.
56
“National Conference on Civil Justice and the Litigation Process,” Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. September 12, 1996. Retrieved from Trith Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2074211269-2074211317.
57
“The Heartland Institute: A Synopsis,” The Heartland Institute, March 1995. Retrieved from Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2046851599-2046851623.
58
“Dear ALEC Private Sector Member,” American Legislative Exchange Council, November 17, 1995. Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library.
59
John Stossel. “John Stossel: What a skating rink can tell us about life (and government),” Fox News, December 14, 2016. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Ate2y
60
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
61
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
62
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
63
”JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.” OpenCorporates. Data via New York Department of State.
64
“Board of Directors” Center for Independent Thought. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/oJFw5
65
Center for Independent Thought homepage. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/AcWEI
66
“Center for Independent Thought,” State Policy Network. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/c2Ccx

1
“Honorary Doctorate to John Stossel,” Newmedia UFM, January 14, 2008. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/gfdEM
2
“John Stossel,” Fox Business. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ugM8S
3
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
4
“Launch of Stossel TV,” YouTube video uploaded by user “John Stossel,” July 19, 2017. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
5
“The Reason Foundation,” Greenpeace. Accessed January 7, 2018.
6
John Stossel. “John Stossel: What a skating rink can tell us about life (and government),” Fox News, December 14, 2016. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Ate2y
7
“Welcome John Stossel,” Charles Koch Institute. Archived November 23, 2020. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/gsEzb
8
John Stossel. “John Stossel: What a skating rink can tell us about life (and government),” Fox News, December 14, 2016. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Ate2y
9
“John Stossel,” Fox Business. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ugM8S
10
“Green Tyranny with John Stossel,” Fox News, June 14, 2015. Archived December 28, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/mezFx
11
“Stossel Tampers with the Facts,” FAIR, July 17, 2001. Archived September 22, 2001. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/4hr5f
12
”JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.” OpenCorporates. Data via New York Department of State.
13
“John Stossel is Rolling in Koch Money,”Grassrootbeer Investigations, December 22, 2020. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/VZoJd
14
Center for Independent Thought homepage. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/AcWEI
15
John Stossel. “WORST OF TIMES,” Lakeland Times, January 17, 2017. Archived March 11, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/9YkxA
16
John Stossel. “Why I wish the Koch brothers spent even more money on politics,” Fox News, January 12, 2017. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/YFiGG
17
“David Boaz gives post‐election analysis on FBN’s Stossel,” Cato Institute, November 7, 2012. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
18
“John Stossel and tobacco settlements,” July 21, 2000. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078852444-2078852444A.
19
Thomas Borelli. “ABC/John Stossel,” April 29, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078372134.
20
Thomas Borelli. “ABC/John Stossel,” April 29, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078372134.
21
“John Stossel ‘Junk Science’ Special,” May 21, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2063346768.
22
Brian Powell. “Fox’s John Stossel Thinks Secondhand Smoke Isn’t Deadly,” Media Matters, December 4, 2014. Archived January 7. 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8gTrc
23
Unedited transcript, June 4, 1999. Retrieved from Tobacco Documents Library. Bates No. 2078706397A-2078706403.
24
THIRD PARTY MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT CONTACT LIST,” October 1998. Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2078212310-2078212322.
25
“Tobacco Litigation – Public Attitudes: PR Response,” Covington Burling, April 1995. Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2065574079-2065574086.
26
David Mastio. “Prime-time propagandist,” Salon, February 25, 2000. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/JVOAP
27
“Center for Independent Thought: Stossel in the Classroom,” Greenpeace. Accessed January 8, 2018.
28
“Center for Independent Thought” Atlas Network. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/YzhAk). Media Matters also documented
29
“The Right-Wing Money Putting John Stossel In School Classrooms,” Media Matters, February 25, 2013. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/aLqgU
30
Homepage, Center for Independent Thought. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL:https://archive.is/wmAq7
31
John Stossel. “The Climate Alarmists Are Wrong,” Reason, September 13, 2017. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/LtSBf
32
“Stossel 2015 06 14 SPECIAL Green Tyranny,” YouTube video uploaded by user “YoungRothbard,” March 17, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
33
John Stossel. “The Global Warming Myth?“ ABC News, April 20, 2007. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/7DQX
34
“Stossel: The climate hustle,” Standard-Examiner, November 19, 2020. Archived November 23, 2020.
35
“Launch of Stossel TV,” YouTube video uploaded by user “John Stossel,” July 19, 2017. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
36
Brian Powell. “Fox’s John Stossel Thinks Secondhand Smoke Isn’t Deadly,” Media Matters, December 4, 2014. Archived January 7. 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/8gTrc
37
“John Stossel – Green Tyranny: In The Name of Protecting The Earth 4/04/13,” YouTube video uploaded by user “selfownership1,” April 27, 2013. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
38
John Stossel. “John Stossel: Climate censors’ ‘fact checks’ are not about facts,” Fremont News Messenger, June 12, 2021. Archived October 18, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/rQuQE
39
“Stossel: The climate hustle,” Standard-Examiner, November 19, 2020. Archived November 23, 2020.
40
Climate Hustle 2: Rise of the Climate Monarchy. CFACT/ CDR Communications, Inc., 2020
41
“Climate Challenge: Bright Lights, Big City … Bigger Debate,” Heartland Institute, September 13, 2019. Archived September 13, 2019. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/M7XlQ. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
42
“(2017 DVD) Pseudo Consensus – The Global Warming Debate,” YouTube video uploaded by “StosselClassroomDVDs” on July 28, 2016.
43
“VIDEO LIBRARY,” Stossel in the Classroom. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/pKHUg
44
“PROPAGANDA: ENVIRONMENTAL FEAR MONGERING,” Stossel in the Classroom. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/f2ggz
45
“THE ENERGY DEBATE: A CASE FOR FOSSIL FUELS,” Stossel in the Classroom. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/YruSp
46
“Stossel 2015 06 14 SPECIAL Green Tyranny,” YouTube video uploaded by user “YoungRothbard,” March 17, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
47
“Stossel 2015 06 14 SPECIAL Green Tyranny,” YouTube video uploaded by user “YoungRothbard,” March 17, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
48
Connor Gibson. “MAN WHO DEFRAUDED EPA CALLS EPA ‘FRAUDULENT’ ON FOX,” Polluterwatch, August 29, 2014. Archived January 8, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/PFIKp
49
“ABC’s Stossel: Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself,” NewsMax, February 22, 2007. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/EFZkz
50
Thomas A. Firey. “Scared Stiff? Watch John Stossel,” Cato Institute, February 23, 2007. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/F9Rdf
51
John Stossel. “A Convenient Lie,” Real clear Politics, July 5, 2006. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/94ax
52
“Stossel Tampers with the Facts,” FAIR, July 17, 2001. Archived September 22, 2001. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/4hr5f
53
Think Tanks Network Vol. 11, Issue 12 (March 24, 2000). Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library. Bates no. 2078876628-2078876638.
54
“Risky Journalism,” Reason, April 1997. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/X1AcF
55
“Junk Science & The Courts,” Nation-Wide Reporting Coverage, February 7, 1996. Retrieved from Tobacco Industry Documents Library. Bates No. 190204128-190204161.
56
“National Conference on Civil Justice and the Litigation Process,” Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. September 12, 1996. Retrieved from Trith Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2074211269-2074211317.
57
“The Heartland Institute: A Synopsis,” The Heartland Institute, March 1995. Retrieved from Tobacco Industry Documents library. Bates No. 2046851599-2046851623.
58
“Dear ALEC Private Sector Member,” American Legislative Exchange Council, November 17, 1995. Retrieved from Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library.
59
John Stossel. “John Stossel: What a skating rink can tell us about life (and government),” Fox News, December 14, 2016. Archived January 7, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/Ate2y
60
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
61
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
62
“John Stossel: Host and Creator, Stossel on Reason,” Reason.com. Archived December 29, 2017. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/heHg8
63
”JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.” OpenCorporates. Data via New York Department of State.
64
“Board of Directors” Center for Independent Thought. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/oJFw5
65
Center for Independent Thought homepage. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/AcWEI
66
“Center for Independent Thought,” State Policy Network. Archived November 15, 2022. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/c2Ccx

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