It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been blogging regularly for over half a decade now.

Prior to 2010, I’d launched probably half a dozen different personal blogs before abandoning them all one by one. Finally, in Hong Kong for New Year’s Eve 2009, I resolved to read fifty books the following year and review each one. I did, and I’ve been blogging ever since.

Following the end of my year of reviews, I started The First Casualty, a new blog devoted to politics and media. It was named after the (apparently apocryphal) quote by Winston Churchill:

The first casualty of war is always truth.

I was then, and still am, struck by the aptness of that observation. As a teen during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I belong, by mere happenstance, to a generation whose formative years were marked by the impressive elasticity of truth in the public sphere. (Recall the days of “known knowns” and, earlier, the contested definition of the word “is.”)

Today, I remain as interested as ever in the public expression of facts, ideas, and – yes – truths. Recently, I’ve attempted to merge my curiosity regarding the national political dialogue with my fascination for journalism and technology. As anyone with a passing familiarity with journalists knows, the business of news finds itself in increasingly perilous straits.

Hand-wringing and navel-gazing aside, the plight of the dejected newsman extends well beyond elegaic tributes to the printed word. The role of news organizations in the era of democratized content is perhaps less clear now than ever before. And yet it is precisely this cacophony of voices that necessitates a redoubled commitment to the establishment of journalistic legitimacy.

Anyway, enough of all that: there is plenty more pontificating to come. But in the absence of a sudden vacancy in The New York Times’ executive editor’s suite – solvable only by hiring a twentysomething ad industry account manager to fill Dean Baquet’s empty shoes, no less – declining revenues and the death of print will remain, for now, the problems of other people.

In the meantime, I intend to use this site as an experiment: writing on media, politics, technology, and data analysis; providing updates on various projects such as SCOTUS Map and SCOTUS Search; and, I dare hope, engaging with whoever happens to comment on my posts. (Note to self: add commenting to the site.)

Thank you for coming. Please tell your friends.

- Jay