John Stossel Uses Children

A group of California parents who feel they were misled by ABC News correspondent John Stossel have revoked their permission for ABC News to use their children's images or voices in an upcoming program. The eight Los Angeles-area children were interviewed by Stossel on Earth Day, 2001 for his upcoming special, "Tampering with Nature," set to air Friday, June 29. In a letter to Stossel and other ABC News officials, each parent who had signed a permission form says that Stossel and his staff violated the Code of Ethics of the Society for Professional Journalists. The parents were not told of Stossel's involvement with the segment when ABC got their written permission to allow their children to be interviewed. They also said they were misled about the nature of the show and were disturbed when Stossel walked in, sat down and started asking the children leading questions about whether or not they were "scared" by the lessons they were being taught about the environment. John Borowski, an environmental educator in Seattle, says he was also approached to appear on the program by 20/20 producer Ted Balaker, who lied about the fact that he was working with Stossel and Michael Sanera of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). An "action alert" by a pesticide industry front group known as RISE (Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment), shows that Stossel and Sanera have been working since March on a program that purports to show how kids have been " 'scared green' by schools teaching doomsday environmentalism in the classroom." (This is not the first time that Stossel and CEI have collaborated. In August 2000, CEI launched the Save John Stossel website to help him keep his job after he was caught lying about organic foods.)