When Barry Goldwater was the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, he didn’t hold back. At the party’s convention that summer, he excited hardcore conservatives by famously declaring “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” and “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” He also spooked many liberals and moderates by talking openly about using nuclear weapons, suggesting the United States “lob one into the men’s room at the Kremlin.”
A racy publisher named Ralph Ginzburg played on fears about Goldwater’s mental stability in the fall of 1964, by publishing a story in his magazine with a provocative headline on its cover: “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater Is Psychologically Unfit To Be President!” After losing in a landslide election to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Goldwater filed a $2 million libel lawsuit against Ginzburg, his Fact magazine and its managing editor.
Because he was a public figure, Goldwater had a high bar to win his suit: proving that the defendants knew the statements they published about him were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. It’s the same standard that Dominion Voting Systems will have to meet if it is to prevail in its $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News, which goes to trial this week. A judge has already ruled that Fox aired false claims by Donald Trump’s allies that Dominion rigged voting machines against the Republican candidate.
Ginzburg, a counterculture figure with a bushy mustache, published...
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