November 15, 1983

Joseph Harry Weston, the Arkansas journalist behind the crude but crusading newspaper the Sharp Citizen, died at a veterans’ hospital in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Weston’s numerous arrests relating to salacious headlines and scandalous stories led to the invalidation of the 105-year-old state criminal libel law. Weston sought to convert his journalistic fame into politics, unsuccessfully running for governor twice, in 1974 and 1976.