John Stossel's Change of Heart

Fox News ^ | 1 7 05 | John Gibson's Interview

[flixxx]

This is a partial transcript of "The Big Story With John Gibson," February 4, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

Watch "The Big Story With John Gibson" weeknights at 5 p.m. ET

JOHN GIBSON, HOST: ABC's John Stossel (search) has been going after crooks and scam artists on television for 30 long years — and he looks so young.

He's been aiming at some pretty big targets lately: big business, big media, big government. John's here to talk about his latest book, now out in paperback. It's called "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media."

How did you become the scourge of the liberal media? (search)

JIM STOSSEL, AUTHOR, "GIVE ME A BREAK": That was the publisher putting that on and I cringed and said, "OK. It'll sell books." I wrote "Give Me a Break" because I realized so much of what I thought was true was wrong. And I was bashing business as a consumer reporter night after night, seeing capitalism as the problem, selfish

[flixxx]

Not that I geneally watch ABC News, but at least Stossel was interesting.

[West Coast Conservative]

I saw him on Hannity and Colmes last week. He was pretty harsh on Ted Turner for donating $1 billion to the UN. He almost sounded like an Objectivist, IMO.

[Paleo Conservative]

Well one good thing about Ted Turner donating that money is that he did it before his finanaces collapsed. He's been forced to allow oil and gas drilling on his western ranches to pay for his donation. It's quite likely Turner would have made his land off limits to drilling if he hadn't had such serious financial problems.

[Phantom Lord]

He was pretty harsh on Ted Turner for donating $1 billion to the UN.

If I remember correctly Turner didn't actually give the UN a billion dollars. He purchased interest bearing securities with it and the UN got the interest and then he got his billion back.

That's how I remember it. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

[Auntie Dem]

If I remember correctly Turner didn't actually give the UN a billion dollars. He purchased interest bearing securities with it and the UN got the interest and then he got his billion back.

That's how I remember it. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

I think he gave the UN appreciated stock in his own companies, he never had to come up with any actual cash, and he avoided the capital gains taxes on the stock's appreciation, plus got a charitable contribution deduction that probably saved him more in current year income taxes than what his original basis was in those stocks.