As The Trial of Conrad Black morphs into a blog that might better be titled The Incarceration of Conrad Black (sources for which, let’s face it, could get a little thin on the ground), I’ll be shifting my efforts to a more general blog examining media, business and the business of media. The new blog—titled Spectator and launching today—will have a regular feature called Black Watch, through which will continue this blog’s purview with the promise of a richer offer besides. In reflecting on the course of this blog’s life to date, I have only this to say: keep it coming. Rollicking, raunchy, incisive, intelligent, funny, bad tempered, mean spirited, galling and appalling—just keep it coming. Speech, free and even otherwise, is what separates us from the beasts—and Conrad Black, love him or hate him, is an avatar of same. He gets me up in the morning and incites me (and from the looks of this crowd, every other dog and his dog) to speak. So Keep. It. Coming.

Go to Douglas Bell’s new blog, Spectator.