Welcome back to the weekly bonus content for “One First.”
Today’s bonus post is a little different. Instead of a substantive post for paid subscribers, or a newsier post for everyone, I wanted to use what has been a quiet week at the Supreme Court (if nowhere else) as an excuse to preview a new feature we’re launching this weekend: A weekly audio companion to the newsletter, called “First One,”1 that paid subscribers will receive in their inboxes each Sunday evening.
Since Karen and I launched “One First” in November 2022(!), we’ve received a lot of great feedback and suggestions—not just for topics to cover, but for different ways in which to provide content to our (growing) audience. And the one suggestion that we’ve received the most with respect to the latter is for the newsletter to also have a podcast—for those who like to consume at least some of their media auditorily.2
Candidly, I’ve resisted those suggestions—for two different reasons. First, Karen and I already tried the podcast thing (“In Loco Parent(i)s”), which was great, but which took too much work and organizing for us to commit to recording it on a regular basis. Second, there are a bunch of Supreme Court-themed podcasts out there already, including “Strict Scrutiny,” “5-4,” and “Divided Argument,” just to name three of my favorites. Even if we could compete with them, I wouldn’t want to. After all, one of the central goals of this newsletter has been to provide folks with a different type of coverage of the Supreme Court and the legal issues surrounding it than what’s available elsewhere. Whether or not the newsletter succeeds on that score, I wouldn’t want to divert energy from what has been the core mission of this enterprise.
Relatedly, I’ve struggled with the question of what kind of additional content we can and should be providing to folks whose circumstances allow them to purchase a paid subscription versus those whose circumstances do not. On one hand, the newsletter takes a heck of a lot of work (especially these days), and so every little bit of support helps. On the other hand, again, insofar as the goal is to raise public awareness and understanding of the Court, it’s hard to do that from behind a paywall.
Against that backdrop, I view “First One” exactly as it’s billed—as a weekly bonus for paid subscribers, nothing more, and nothing less. Each week’s episode will focus primarily on a sneak-peek of what I’ve got planned for that week’s coverage of the Court, with some other more personal stories and reflections thrown in for fun. I’ll also devote the last couple of minutes of each episode to answering your questions. So if there are specific things you’re curious about, Court-related or otherwise, fire away. (Please just let me know if you want to be publicly associated with the question or not.)
If this works as intended, you won’t miss anything substantive if you don’t listen to “First One” each week. But for those who want something extra, or who’d like to hear my own view on whether amicus is pronounced AM-a-kis or a-ME-kis, or who’d just like an audio synopsis of what they’re already (or soon will be) reading, “First One” will have you covered.
There’s a short audio file attached to this post that hopefully gives you a bit more of a flavor of what’s coming. Whether that (or this) impels you to upgrade to a paid subscription, to cancel your subscription altogether, or … none of the above, I’d be remiss in not stressing just how grateful I am to everyone who’s helped to make “One First” a success. There wouldn’t be much point to any of this without you.
Happy Thursday, all. Please stay safe out there.
Creativity was never my strong suit.
It sure isn’t for my voice. Although I auditioned to get to read the audio book version of The Shadow Docket, let’s just say that, when the publisher sent me the three finalists from which to choose, I … wasn’t one of them. (The audiobook is narrated by the fantastic Jonathan Todd Ross.)
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