Not long after the demise of Eros, Ginzburg started another magazine called Fact. It, too, ended over a lawsuit. This time the plaintiff was U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. He sued the magazine for $2 million on the charge of libel, and was awarded $65,000 in damages. "It was a compromise, as jury decisions frequently are," remarks Ginzburg. "Unfortunately I didn't have very much money back then, and it wiped us out."
Describing the case, he said: "In 1964, when Goldwater was running for president, he advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. I thought the guy was out of his mind and I wondered if anyone else had the same suspicion. … We polled all the members of the American Medical Association who were listed as psychiatrists and asked them if they thought Goldwater was fit to be president. We printed their replies and their long-distance diagnoses … "
Both the Eros case and the Goldwater case made the American public examine some far-reaching questions: What is obscene? What is libelous? Ginzburg helped to establish new definitions for these terms, and in so doing, widened the power of the press.
Avant-Garde, his third publication, existed from 1967 to 1970. "It was born during the Vietnam uprising in this country," he explains. "It was a magazine of art and politics, and had no ad revenue."
In the same year that Avant-Garde folded, he began a newsletter called Moneysworth. Soon it expanded into a full-sized newspaper. "It was launched," says Ginzburg, "because we felt that the only existing periodical in the area of consumer interest — Consumer Reports — wasn't broad enough. Spending money is more than buying appliances."
While Moneysworth does carry many valuable tips on personal finance, it also has a considerable amount of sensationalism that would seem at home in the National Enquirer. Even so, Ginzburg's managerial skills, his nonstop working habits, and his literary expertise — he has written several books — have made Moneysworth a winner. Using the same staff of 40, along with many free-lance writers, he now publishes two other monthly newspapers as well, American Business and Extra!
He has been a Westsider for 15 years, and his publishing company,
Avant-Garde Media, is located on West 57th Street.
If Ginzburg has a single goal right now, it's "to saved up enough money to enable me to put out a periodical exactly like Avant-Garde was. It was pure pleasure for me: there was no commercial compromise. But even though this is a multimillion-dollar corporation here, I can't afford it at the moment. … Money is important in publishing. I have to spend 99 percent of my time and effort chasing the buck. I guess I'm lucky. Most people spend 100 percent of their time that way."
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EASTSIDER LILLIAN GISH 78 years in show business