Stossel's Sins of Omission

By Melissa McEwan, AlterNet. Posted June 22, 2006.

Someone less charitable than I might suggest that the title of John Stossel's new tome, "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity" is accurate in ways he never intended.

In truth, there are some things in "Myths" that the 20/20 anchorman addresses rather honestly -- usually the topics tossed in to bolster his libertarian pretensions. Stossel's opening salvo on debunking "pseudo-experts," for instance, takes to task the experts who claim they can cure homosexuality, later noting that "if a man wants to have sex with another man, that should be his choice." Good.

Yet there are also many not-so-good things about the book.

Stossel breaks down "Myths" into 12 chapters on subjects ranging from "Clueless Media" to "The Pursuit of Happiness," but his targets are less varied. Again and again, he goes after the press, government and "experts," whether they be litigators or environmental scientists, harboring a special antipathy for anyone he perceives as interfering with the market. In the end, Stossel reveals himself not to be a libertarian so much as the preeminent champion, defender and protector of capitalism. If he doesn't get exercised about homosexuality, it's probably because he sees no market value for homophobia.

Of course, a man who's made his career on being a "consumer advocate" finds himself in a bit of a conundrum as he preaches the infallibility of capitalism, as the latter requires a nearly unyielding defense of corporations. To reconcile the two, Stossel apparently trusts his audience to be wholly daft or to be such plodding readers that by the time they reach page 161:

MYTH: Businesses rip us off.

TRUTH: Most don't.

they have forgotten what he said on page 141:

"[B]ig government hurts consumers much more than business. However That doesn't mean that businesses aren't ripping us off. They are, and they'll do it every chance they get." (Emphasis mine.)

Considering his disdain of injury lawsuits, he really ought to consider giving away a free whiplash collar with every purchase of his book.

The existence of corrupt, unethical or scammy businesses, however, is, in Stossel's world, self-correcting -- because competition takes care of them. "Competition, media coverage, and (occasionally) legal prosecution limit their opportunities to scam consumers," he assures us, after his chapters on "Clueless Media" and "Monster Government." And though he casually mentions that, sure, there are some corporations who "rip us off" -- "Enron, WorldCom and Tyco became famous for it" -- he fails wholly to address the troublesome dilemma of monopolies. On the very next page, after mentioning those three problematic corporate giants, he launches into:

MYTH: Government must make rules to protect us from business.

TRUTH: Competition protects us, if government gets out of the way.

Nary a mention in the entire section of relaxed government regulation having led to the criminal enterprises perpetrated upon the American people by corporate monopolies such as the ones he provides as examples. Not a passing suggestion that allowing monopolies to flourish decreases the possibility of competition solving the problem of unethical business practices. Instead, it's right on to defending Big Pharma and denouncing the idea of a higher minimum wage.

In fact, the only time Stossel makes much of a fuss about monopolies at all is when he embarks on debunking all the myths, lies and downright stupidity surrounding our "Stupid Schools." It is here he grouses endlessly about the "government monopoly" on educating children. "Government monopolies," he says, "routinely fail their customers."

As proof, Stossel reproduces much of what originally aired in January as a report on 20/20 filed under the name Stupid in America, which argued that U.S. students were in deep trouble by comparing test results between U.S. and Belgian students. At the time, Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler thoroughly debunked the report, pointing out such glaring flaws as Stossel's failure to identify what test was given and how comparability between the two sets of students was established -- if it was at all.

If Stossel read Somerby's critique (or one of the many others across the blogosphere) of his "Stupid" segment, he doesn't show it. None of the concerns raised directly following the airing of the same material earlier this year were addressed in the book. The omissions of the test name and any description of the Belgian students still stand, and his assertion that our government monopoly on public education fails its students rests solely on some students from "an above-average school in New Jersey" scoring 47 percent on an unnamed test on which unidentified Belgian students scored 76 percent.

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Media and Technology! Sign up now »