The Glade 4.0

It's time for a change. Next month, I leave ABC News to start a weekly one-hour prime time show with Fox News.

When I announced that on my blog, plenty of viewers said they were happy to have me leave.

"Goodbye. You suck. You have found a much better home for your garbage reporting and backwards politics."

"Congratulations on the move to the network intellectually suited to your quasi-libertarian corporate-apologist hackery!"

Oh well, you can't please everyone. I don't expect that my libertarian beliefs will please everyone at Fox, either.

Years ago, ABC hired me to do consumer reporting. When I wised up, deciding consumer "advocates" usually did more harm than good, that horrified some of my colleagues.

When I did my first TV special, I pointed out that regulation itself, by stifling innovation, can make life less safe. Two producers angrily objected, saying, "No respectable journalist would say that." The senior producer on the program smugly told me, "You just can't say that on network TV."

ABC's (now NBC's) research director, said: "Why do a show on risk assessment? You should do something on diet or breast implants -- something we know people will watch."

But give ABC credit. After bitter arguments, it ran the show, titled, "Are We Scaring You to Death?" A news division's vice president said, "I don't agree with you, but it's a valid intellectual argument that deserves to be made."

We were all surprised when 17 million Americans watched. We got 3,000 letters, many from scientists who wrote: "Thank God, somebody's finally saying these things. I can't believe I saw that on network television."

So I kept doing those kinds of reports.

My bosses often disagreed with my point of view, but they usually let me air it.

But it was frustrating. My vision and that of my producers were often not in harmony. Too many stories I thought were important -- such as the land theft called eminent domain, or the FDA's endangering people's lives by withholding life-saving drugs -- were not aired.

When I pushed, ABC producers often stared at me as if they were thinking, "Why would you want to do that?"

So after 28 years, it's time to move on.

In my new job, I want to dig into the meaning of the words "liberty" and "limited government." For many years, through Republican and Democratic administrations, we have been losing something vital in America: the commitment to individual liberty and the understanding that as government grows, liberty shrinks.

Fox offers me more airtime and a new challenge. I'm still thinking about what I will do with my own show. Economic analyses of the latest screwball ideas in Washington -- certainly. I also want to undertake exercises in understanding libertarianism, the philosophy of freedom, which used to be called "liberalism."

What do you think? You can help me shape the new program. I ask you for your ideas. Which interesting speakers should I book? What thought experiments should I try with a studio audience? Please let me know.

Maybe I can even learn something from the hostile comments: "You are intelectually (sic) dishonest and a hack. I'm glad I won't stumble upon your sloppy one sided reporting ever again."

"Your right-wing rhetoric was hard to disguise. You were found out when Obama was elected President."

It's interesting to explore the premises here. I have been one of the few reporters on mainstream network TV who did not hide his political beliefs. Viewers know I am for individual liberty and the free market, and against government coercion. I thought that this candor might earn me some credit from those who disagree with me. After all, by putting my views out there, everyone can judge my reports accordingly.

But -- surprise! -- it did not win me much credit with those who disagreed. Instead, many act as if I am the only reporter who has an ideology.

Of course, that's absurd. Every reporter has political beliefs. The difference is that I am upfront about mine.

To be continued.

ABC just got rid of someone not worth watching!

John Stossle is perfect for fox news. He loves to present sensationalist, misleading reports that muddy the waters of rational discourse and debate.

Actually, he seems to be very logical and rational. He makes the other side look pretty silly a good bit of the time. I expect FOX viewership to increase a great deal.

He conveniently forgot to disclose their associations and specialties. On investigation, several of them were shown to be members of global warming denier groups like CATO

or to not have any credentials what so ever as climatologists.

Mentioning that would be an ad hominem fallacy, and considering it a credibility factor would be circular reasoning. They are members of "global warming denier groups" because they rationally and logically disagree with global warming, not the other way around.



Like, say, Al Gore? Or David Suzuki? Or any one of most of the 'experts' people quote when talking about global warming? Yes, tu quoque, one side doing it doesn't excuse the other side. Nobody's perfect.

Mentioning that would be an ad hominem fallacy, and considering it a credibility factor would be circular reasoning. They are members of "global warming denier groups" because they rationally and logically disagree with global warming, not the other way around.

Like, say, Al Gore? Or David Suzuki? Or any one of most of the 'experts' people quote when talking about global warming? Yes, tu quoque, one side doing it doesn't excuse the other side. Nobody's perfect.

No, that would be good journalism. When you are looking for facts about a subject at hand, disclosing associations of the experts you interview is part of the process. If you don't disclose that information, the people who watch your report do not have all the information they need to make a judgment about the person you are interviewing.

He also billed them as average scientists. That was just not the case.

Al Gore does not claim to be a scientist (I dont know who David Suzuki is). He is a spokesman and an advocate. A very knowledgable one, but he bases his advocacy on science, and not on a predetermined conclusion, like John Stossel did.

If you are going to hold up Stossel as some kind of great thinker or excellent journalist, than you should do so based on good journalism. On that test, he fails. It might "feel" logical, or "seem" good, but that's your emotions talking, and that has nothing to do with the accuracy of his reporting or it's journalistic integrity.

Duh. they don't believe in global warming.

Showing them as a member of a reputable group like CATO is not relevant, it's like disclosing that the mechanic you are interviewing has a subscription to a motorcycle magazine.

Ignoring scientists for what you suggest is like ignoring scientists for being members of the IPCC (which is sorely tempting, but not logical.)

None of what you are saying here is actually accurate, unless you want to define average as "not being a global warming skeptic" (which would need sourcing anyway.)

Global Warming is not like Christianity. It's not something you believe in or not. The world is not flat. You don't chose to believe if the world is flat or not. It isn't. We know it's not flat. The same thing is true with Global Warming. We know that it is happening, and we know that we are responsible.

Actually, we should make a distinction. The Earth has experienced multiple ice ages. That alone makes global warming a fact. It also makes global cooling a fact. Now, these ice ages occurred before humans were capable of having a significant impact on the mean temperature of the Earth. This means that global warming occurring without human intervention is a fact. It also means that there is reasonable suspicion for any claim that humans are causing global warming.

The fact that you believe this tripe is proof that you are not rational on the subject, having either no understanding of science or the scientific process at all, or perhaps willfully ignoring it, and that further discussion with you on the subject is pointless, as you refuse to consider any questioning of it at all as being credible. Once again, circular logic. You ignore evidence against global warming because global warming is "real," therefore the evidence must be wrong.

In the real world, Global Warming is not proven, and seriously flawed as a "scientific" theory.

Stossel got it right, and unlike "An Inconvenient Truth," (which presents the idea as incontrovertible,) "The Global Warming Myth?" (which presents the idea as unproven and in need of a lot more empirical evidence before we spend trillions on it), is real journalism.

Ahem.

You have 10000 scientists. 9,998 of them say "the Science clearly shows *blah*. Two of them say "we don't think that's true, and here is why". The 9,998 scientists look into their claims, and show how they are factually incorrect. The two scientists continue to hold on to their opinions, despite them being disproven.

You are saying it's irrational to look at that situation and say "the 9,998" are correct.

In the real world, Global Warming is not proven, and seriously flawed as a "scientific" theory.

Actually, we should make a distinction. The Earth has experienced multiple ice ages. That alone makes global warming a fact. It also makes global cooling a fact. Now, these ice ages occurred before humans were capable of having a significant impact on the mean temperature of the Earth. This means that global warming occurring without human intervention is a fact. It also means that there is reasonable suspicion for any claim that humans are causing global warming.

But that ignores a key point. The warming we are experiencing today is completely out of the norm for warming trends in the past.

Human influences have:

very likely contributed to sea level rise during the latter
half of the 20th century

likely contributed to changes in wind patterns, affecting
extra-tropical storm tracks and temperature patterns

likely increased temperatures of extreme hot nights, cold
nights and cold days

more likely than not increased risk of heat waves, area
affected by drought since the 1970s and frequency of heavy
precipitation events.