Attackerman

This is a post I wrote five years ago today announcing the birth of a blog my friend started at WIRED, called Danger Room. I originally did not think it was called Danger Room, even though all the evidence pointed in that direction. Somehow my brain inserted the premise, “No one besides you is nerdy enough to name a defense blog after the X-Men’s training facility,” and I originally announced the birth of Danger Zone, like the Top Gun theme. Until Noah Shachtman told me that, indeed, he and Sharon Weinberger were just as nerdy as I was.

Something like three years pass. Noah IM’s me one day and asks if I would be interested in jumping ship and taking Nathan Hodge’s post. It took me maybe an hour to decide that of course I’d want to join a team that I had already gushed over to the Columbia Journalism Review. Details got ironed out, and this happened.

We turned five today, and it’s my honor to use the third-person plural for what in my arrogant opinion is the best national-security bureau going. Working with Katie Drummond, David Axe and Noah has made me a much better reporter, writer, observer and (self-) critic. Working with WIRED more broadly has allowed me to develop a facility with technology that I never thought I could possess. These guys stuck with me when a gutter journalist wrote a hit job on me and there were a few days of freakout about it — and it was never even a question to them that they would stick by me. The least I can do is return their loyalty with what the best journalism I can produce.

Danger Room has so much more for you in the years ahead. Stick with us and we’ll reward you for it.