Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel - Why Everything You Know Is Wrong » (Abridged)

Consumer advocate, investigative reporter, and bestselling author John Stossel is back with a new book based on his top-rated 20/20 segment, which debunks popularly reported misconceptions
America s favorite investigative reporter, John Stossel, tackles our favorite myths in his characteristic style and challenges us to look at life differently.
Myths and Misconceptions covered in the book include:
Is the media unbiased?
Are our schools helping or hurting our kids?
Do singles have a better sex life than married people?
Do we have less free time than we used to?
Is outsourcing bad for American workers?
Suburban sprawl is ruining America.
Money makes people happier.
The world is too crowded.
We re drowning in garbage.
Profiteering is evil.
Sweatshops exploit people.
John Stossel takes on these and many more misconceptions, misunderstandings, and plain old stupidity in this collection that will offer much to love for Give Me a Break fans, and show everyone why conventional wisdom -- economic, political, or social -- is often wrong.
John Stossel has been reporting for 20/20 since 1981. Since then, he has received 19 Emmy awards, and been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. In addition to his longer indepth reports for 20/20, Stossel is featured in a weekly segment called "Give Me a Break." His book Give Me a Break was a national bestseller. He also hosts ABC s John Stossel Specials report for ABC radio and ABCNews.com. A graduate of Princeton University, Stossel lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Publishers Weekly

ABC News correspondent Stossel mines his 20/20 segments for often engaging, frequently tendentious challenges to conventional wisdom, presenting a series of "myths" and then deploying an investigative journalism shovel to unearth "truth." This results in snappy debunkings of alarmism, witch-hunts, satanic ritual abuse prosecutions and marketing hokum like the irradiated-foods panic, homeopathic medicine and the notion that bottled water beats tap. Stossel's libertarian convictions make him particularly fond of expos s of government waste and regulatory fiascoes, which are usually effective but lead inexorably to blanket denunciations of "monster government" and sermons on the wisdom of the market. Sloganeering-"Myth: The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) will make America less sexist. Truth: The EEOC will torment people and enrich lawyers"-sometimes crowds out objectivity. The author's complacent glosses on overpopulation and global warming ("we can build dykes and move back from the coasts") are especially glib and one-sided. Fans of Stossel's similarly opinionated bestseller Give Me a Break will eat up this new book, but other readers may wince when the author's ideology overshadows the facts. Author tour. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.