Defamation — the slandering (spoken) or libeling (written) of another — is notoriously hard to prove in the United States, where you must demonstrate not only that the person lied about you but also knowingly or recklessly inflicted harm.

This is the famous malice clause, which became precedent in the 1964 case The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Legal experts have said that Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network — which was slated to go to trial Tuesday, April 18, in Delaware Superior Court after a one-day delay that may have involved settlement talks — would have had equally far-reaching implications, not only for the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press but for the continuing conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election. But Dominion and Fox settled out of court for a staggering $787.5 million, with Fox acknowledging the “court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” Yeah, and who made those claims?

There are few things in life more satisfying than living the life you see in your head. Such moments are rare, but when they happen, you have to savor them. Such was the case Thursday, Feb. 23, as Westfair Communications Inc. presented its first literary luncheon in White Plains, New York.

“History: Fiction and Nonfiction” was the theme of “Literary Westfair,” featuring Mary Calvi’s new “If a Poem Could Live and Breathe: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt’s First Love” (St. Martin’s Press) – about his first wife, the former Alice Hathaway Lee – and John A. Lipman’s biography “Alfred B. DelBello: His Life and Times” (Atmosphere Press). As Westfair’s chief cultural writer and luxury editor, I had a lot of skin in this game, serving as moderator and one of the authors who would be reading.