Click for link to John Stossel's blog

Another libertarian-leaning journalist, John Stossel, is joining the Fox News – Fox Business cable lineup.  According to the Fox News release:

Stossel, best known for his work as co-anchor of ABC News’ “20/20,” will anchor “Stossel,” a weekly program on FOX Business Network, and make regular appearances on FOX News Channel, it was announced Thursday.

The one-hour program will feature in-depth reports on domestic and international libertarian issues and will debut during the fourth quarter of this year in FBN’s primetime lineup. Stossel and a panel of experts will explore a wide range of topics including civil liberties, the business of health care and Social Security.

He will also host a series of one-hour specials on FOX News Channel and write a blog called “Stossel’s Take.”

If you quit watching ABC News programs, as I did long ago, you’ve missed a lot of good work by Stossel, although some of it played on Fox News when he did guest apps.  Stossel started his career as a muckraking consumer-protection journalist, out to expose the frauds and misdeeds of Big Business, but underwent a period of enlightenment and growth which eventually put him firmly in the libertarian camp.

Stossel was tolerated by ABC News, most likely owing to his 19 Emmy Awards, and characterized by the mainstream press as a “contrarian.”  He was once described thusly by the NY Times:

Reviled in some quarters as an ideologue and crusader, admired in others for his fresh, contrarian approach, Mr. Stossel is an anomaly in television journalism. Reporters are generally forced to keep their ideologies to themselves. Mr. Stossel is allowed to make his views known.

And that he does. An unabashed libertarian, he has argued that greed is good for the economy; that environmentalists are ‘’scaremongers” with vastly overblown fears of global warming and pollution, and, even, that seat belts in school buses are a waste of money.

So why would Stossel leave a secure position at ABC News for Fox? One likely reason is that Fox is libertarian-friendly (Glenn Beck, Judge Napolitano, for examples). Another: Fox is where the viewers are. Fox is consistently out-drawing all other cable news channels combined.  Passionate libertarian Glenn Beck is killer in his 5:00 pm slot:

5PM –                  P2+                        (25-54)                     (35-64)
Glenn Beck– 3,340,000 viewers (958,000) (1,630,000)
Situation Room—725,000 viewers (145,000) (253,000)
Hardball w/ Chris Matthews—650,000 viewers (184,000) (346,000)
Fast Money—166,000 viewers (a scratch w/ 43,000) (68,000)
Prime News–288,000 viewers (99,000) (157,000)

Beck’s 5:00 pm show is now in second position at Fox News, behind Bill O’Reilly at 8:00 — but Beck leads O’Reilly in the younger demographic:

8PM –                                        P2+                      (25-54)            (35-64)
The O’Reilly Factor – 3,609,000 viewers (918,000) (1,542,000)

So John Stossel is moving to where the viewers are, and specifically where the libertarian viewers are.  Although the Fox News lineup is regularly excoriated as “Republican,” most of them are not — O’Reilly is an independent who calls himself a “traditionalist;” Beck and Napolitano are libertarians; Shepard Smith, Greta Van Susteren, and Bret Baier list no political affiliation; only Sean Hannity is a self-described “Republican.”

My take is that libertarians, like me, are catching on to Fox News as having recognized the second political dimension which most news organizations ignore.  American politics is far more complicated than the “conservative-moderate-liberal” continuum typically used by the mainstream media and polling organizations; there, a “libertarian-statist” dimension exists and Fox is where viewers can go to hear about it.

VIDEOS:

Stossel on gun control:

Stossel on Glenn Beck’s old HLN Show:

Stossel on the Ethanol Boondoggle:

Long video — Myths, Lies & Downright Stupidity: