Eight years ago, I left network TV behind.
I worried that moving to social media wouldn’t work — that not enough people wanted news alongside cat videos.
I also worried that not enough of you would donate to pay for it.
Unlike most of what you find on Fox News, CNN, etc., we at Stossel TV do weeks of research. Before we post, seven people fact-check, edit and double-check each other’s work.
Would enough of you watch and donate to pay for that?
Yes!
This month, my channels reached a billion views. Thank you!
I am often surprised by which videos you choose to watch.
Millions of you watched my long video with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, about how the NSA invades Americans’ privacy. All my career, I kept videos short. We thought that’s what it took to get people to watch. But Snowden, even at almost two hours, is our most-watched YouTube video.
Our most-watched Twitter videos are about government failures, like former President Joe Biden’s promise to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. In three years, the government built seven.
I wish politicians left such things to capitalists.
On Instagram and Rumble, my most-watched video is one that took NYC’s government to task for spending $2 million to build a public bathroom in a park.
When I confronted the parks commissioner, pointing out that big houses cost less than his bathroom, he smiled and said “$2 million was a good deal” because the government pays union wages. “It’s a good thing.”
Our most-watched Facebook video is one in which scientists put common climate change fears into perspective.
Climatologist Patrick Michaels: “It’s warmed up around one degree Celsius since 1900, and life expectancy doubled in the industrialized democracies. Yet that temperature ticks up another half a degree, and the entire system crashes? That’s the most absurd belief!”
That video got 24 million views before, sadly, Facebook censored it.
That’s so wrong.
I began my NYC TV career doing environmental reporting. I won awards exposing filth in city air, in the Hudson River, and pointing out the need for pollution control.
That was then. Now activists fake environmental threats to raise money.
MSNBC: “Climate change could create a massive global food shortage!”
Former President Barack Obama believed that, saying climate change “is already making it more difficult to produce food.”
The opposite is true. Food production has increased dramatically.
The zealots claim America’s bees are dying off. A “bee-pocalypse,” shrieked ABC News.
But the bee population has been going up!
They claim polar bears are disappearing. But there are more polar bears now.
It’s good we now have alternatives to so-called mainstream media.
I hate that they cluelessly mock things that make life better, like capitalism.
Not only is it cruel, but “Capitalism is making you lonely,” declares Jacobin.
“Capitalism makes us feel empty inside,” says Vox.
No wonder 62% of young Americans have a “favorable view” of socialism.
That’s the main reason I built Stossel TV: to try to teach young people that socialism always fails, while a free market, greedy and crass as it often is, creates prosperity.
I’m now training “Stossel Fellows,” young people who will carry on after me.
One I’ve worked with is Gloria Alvarez of Guatemala. She’s become a Latin American influencer, making videos that say: “The thing with socialism is it’s like a beautiful iceberg … the tip, all about brotherhood, free stuff, ‘we’re all going to get along.’ But below sea level is the misery and the genocide and injustice.”
By contrast, the free-market iceberg “looks horrible in the tip. It’s all about selfishness, greed, individualism and capitalism.” Out of sight, below the water, is where “progress and freedom and tolerance and thriving economies actually happen.”
Over the past 30 years, those hard-to-see forces lifted a billion people out of extreme poverty.
Most of what makes life better happens because of the market.
I hope to keep reporting on that for another billion views.
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
John. The Bible says “the truth will set you free,”
Hey, John. I’m one of your colleagues from back in the 524 W. 57th days. That’s a long time ago! I’m so impressed with the entrepreneurial success you’ve built. Who needs the networks, right????
Congratulations! You are what all other journalists should aspire to be. Excellence and professionalism are the hallmarks of your work — and have been for the many decades I’ve watched you. In addition to your impressive “views” milestone, I’m glad to know you’re also training the next generation. God bless you on this momentous occasion, and please keep up your great — and very important — work.
I have been watching you for 40 years. Your solid logic and display of facts is refreshing. Even told my lovely wife: “I would love his job”. I became a surgeon instead, as well as a health IT executive. I am now retired and completely disillusioned by the divisiveness and histrionics on the left. Our country is in turmoil b/c of these polarizations and I pray there is a way forward. Thank you for your amazing efforts…good and faithful servant!
I so love this for you. I used to watch you on basic cable, mainstream media, loved the stories that you brought to light, and so proud for you to branch off and report on better and more impactful stories that the mainstream media tends to “lie” about… I may or may not agree with everything you say and do but I sure am glad I get to hear and see you, your opinion, your work, your Passion ❣️❣️ Thank you taking a chance because we need you more now than ever ❣️❣️
Its funny how they mock capitalism, calling it cruel and making us lonely. Meanwhile, their own solutions always seem to involve diving below sea level into misery and genocide, as one young free-market champion put it. Keep up the excellent work, John! Those billion views were well earned. P.S. Hope your Stossel Fellows are ready for the next round – the zealots never stop screaming about bees dying off, even though their population is clearly thriving!