Simple repro; create a new journal entry - save as draft - wait a couple of days and then edit/publish. It appears in the listing with the first DRAFT date, not the first PUBLISH date. Until publish, only I can see the entry (or so I believe...?)

As a blogger accustomed to systems like Wordpress, etc, I'd expect the entry to appear with the first published date as the sort date, not the draft date. Naturally, subsequent edits after publish shouldn't modify this date and preserve the original publish date to prevent abuse.