John Stossel

On Thursday, April 3, College Republicans brought John Stossel, co-anchor and award-winning news correspondent of ABC Television Network’s “20/20” to the stage of the Montante Cultural Center at Canisius College.

Stossel’s commanding presence immediately captured the attention of the audience as he intrigued us all with is intelligence, captivated us with his personal stories and entertained us with his wit.

Stossel spoke about his past career as a TV consumer reporter and his drastic viewpoints on government control. He thinks it is time for the government to stop protecting us from ourselves. He feels that “although the government protects us from bad things, it also protects us from the good.” Stossel believes it is open competition, not the government that can protect us. “The free market protects consumers in unexpected ways,” he claims.

“How big should the government be?” Stossel urged the audience to ponder this question. He feels the government is necessary to protect our property and keep citizens safe, but they are overstepping their bounds. He argues that as Americans, we should at least have the freedom to decide what we put into our bodies. He feels that government control seems to complicate things--from complex drug labels that consumers don’t bother to read (primarily because they are too confusing), to the fact that it takes longer to get a permit to build a house than the actual process of building the house--which actually cause us to become “less safe.”

The ironic part about Stossel’s career is that he has won 19 Emmy Awards as a consumer reporter but zero since he has been criticizing the government, his true calling.

Lastly, one thing that I found to be very interesting was when Michael Rautins interviewed Stossel privately and asked what advice he would give to future journalists. Stossel’s advice was “don’t go to school for Journalism.” This seems rather bizarre, but Stossel believes that students can prepare themselves better from majoring in Political Science or English. He thinks that the skills necessary to become a successful journalist come with practice and that a strong knowledge base will do more in the long run for future journalists.