John Stossel Under Fire

[kelley]

In a second NEW YORK TIMES op ad this week we are taking on ABC News
reporter John Stossel, who disparaged organic food in a "20/20" report
in February (repeated in July) based on fabricated and misrepresented
lab tests.  Shocking that he'd do so?  We think so and that's why we
ran the ad.

People with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) called him on it
back in February.  He and his producer ignored their calls, letters
and faxes--and then repeated the misinformation on a subsequent
broadcast.  Not until the NYT recently ran an article about EWG's
complaints did ABC take action, suspending the producer for a month
and forcing Stossel to offer a correction on tonight's "20/20"
broadcast.  But is that enough?

Click here to read our op ad in which we call on ABC to take stronger
action.
http://www.tompaine.com/opad/

Click here to read the full story by EWG's Kent Cook.
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2000/08/10/index.html

John Stossel has a history of making mistakes that serve his
ideological agenda.  Click here to read about some other examples as
profiled by the non-profit media watchdog, FAIR:
http://www.tompaine.com/features/2000/08/10/16.html