Word: libeller
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This time it is his motivation that is in question. It is not easy to prove libel to the satisfaction of higher courts when public figures are involved. To make a charge of libel stick, the Supreme Court has held, "there must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication." If he did, he was guilty of recklessness and malice, and, as a result, libel. Ginzburg may yet persuade an appeals court that he was neither reckless nor malicious...
...unprofessional-not to say unbalanced-nature of such remarks brought immediate condemnation from the A.M.A. and the American Psychiatric Association. It also brought a $2,000,000 libel suit from Goldwater against Fact, Publisher Ralph Ginzburg and his managing editor. Last week the suit finally came to trial...
...issue, however, was not simply whether Fact had been full of fiction. Senator Goldwater was then a particularly public figure, and the Supreme Court has made it extremely difficult for such persons to win a libel suit. To avoid stifling the free-speech right to criticize government leaders, the court since 1964 has required proof that the alleged libeler had "malice" or "reckless disregard" for the truth. Just two weeks ago, the test became stiffer still. Beyond "reckless disregard," the court added the necessity of proving that the libeler "entertained serious doubt" about the truth of his accusation...
...attempting to show, as Ginzburg's lawyer said in his opening statement, that the issue's various articles were certainly "racy, tough, and not for the old lady in Dubuque," but that they were "good journalism" or at least fair comment or, at the very least, not libel...
...hashish, hard-core pornography--the Corporation would have recognized that a question of principle was involved. They would not have interfered. But Mr. Watson's book dealt with an arcane problem of science, a still more difficult problem of the scientific personality, a highly subjective question of libel, and an even more inassessable threat of legal action. On sidestepping a professional squabble or avoiding a lawsuit, one may assume, the Corporation saw no question of principle. To be sure they also failed to see that these were questions on which an occasional gathering of excellent but inexperienced laymen would inevitably...