From Publisher’s Lunch:
David Simon has accused Linda Williams, author of ON THE WIRE, of libeling him in a Huffington Post essay adapted from her book. In a post on his website Simon said that when he was asked to review a galley of Williams’ book by her publisher Duke University Press several months ago, he found that “embedded in the original manuscript was a theme, conjured from god knows where by the author, that I had been fired from the newspaper after a falling out with editors that involved an ethical breach on my part. I don’t know how else to say this: There was no ethical breach.”
Simon said he had written to Duke University Press and attempted to correct the record through Huffington Posts’s legal inquiry forms but received no response. “Being fired from any job certainly implies cause. It is defamatory on its face. And when a writer is informed in advance of the facts and chooses to publish such a claim regardless, it meets the definition for libel, and actionable libel even of a public person.”