ABC News Continues to Suffer the Consequences of Hiring John Stossel
Quizzical mustache John Stossel, the former ABC Newsman who took his stories about how poor people are faking it to Fox News two years ago, continues to humiliate his former employer in his absence. Today, four years after Stossel falsely accused a pastor of leading a lavish lifestyle in a 20/20 segment, the network was forced to issue an apology.
The Stossel story, which aired in 2007, was about wealthy preachers, which are a problem not because Stossel thinks ripping people off is wrong but because he thinks helping people at all is wrong. But he pulled a Breitbart by showing footage of New York City Los Angeles preacher Frederick K.C. Price saying, "I live in a 25-room mansion, I have my own $6-million yacht, I have my own private jet" without mentioning that Price was actually speaking from the perspective of a generic and hypothetical wealthy person, did not in fact own any of those things, and was actually saying that you can own those things and be spiritually hollow.
20/20 made an on-air apology shortly after the episode aired. But today, to settle a legal challenge from Price, ABC News issued a written statement apologizing for the segment and acknowledging that the piece "misled its audience and failed to meet its own standards." What's the point of having a John Stossel if you can't mislead people?