#Demand Generation Campaign

[taylorftparamore]

watching right-wingers repeatedly whine about taylor swift & swifties is soooo funny like... don't y'all have a failing campaign to worry about?

[transingthoseformers]

I have a massive soft spot for a carrying Megatron, any continuity, and him being completely and utterly chill about it. He got this, no problem. Just breezes through his pregnancy with basically no symptoms.

Bur the sire? A nervous wreck. Megatron grumbles once about his backstrut hurting? Better go to the medics right now!

... I wish there'd be a fic like that, at least.

Sdhj i mean you're right, that's awesome, and consider:

This but it's TFA Megastriknut. Strika's off doing her general thing and makes them swear up and down to type up some updates for her every night, Lugnut is absolutely doing his Lugnutty thing while Megatron is just so tired of it like c'mon he's a warlord he'll be fine, but he's still taking that pillow yes.

[iknewiwouldregretthis]

woke up this morning and immediately read the entirety of the robert kennedy assassination page for reasons entirely unknowable

[nostalgia-tblr]

Just to say

I'm not changing any fic titles this week, not because I think the End OTW Racism people are in the wrong to want some sort of policy on racism at at AO3, but because my first thought was "that's not going to work, the OTW board are seemingly very resistant to actually doing anything about this and the only thing that will shift them is a loss of funding or people getting on the board and changing things from the inside" and then my second thought was "but I should do it anyway, in case people think I am pro-racism," which led to my third and (currently) final thought of "oh fuck off, nos, then it's just being performative to fit in, that's worse than just not doing it because you think it's useless." So that's where I am at the moment. I am supportive of anyone who is doing it, and I hope it does have more of an effect than I expect it too, but I'm not doing this specific thing myself because I know that my joining in wouldn't be genuine. This is a me thing, not a you or anyone else thing. (And probably to some extent it's also an anxiety thing, but that's always a factor in almost anything for me.)

[abhibaj]

How to Pick the Right Content for Your Lead Gen Campaign?

In the fast-paced world of B2B tech marketing, where innovation drives competition and attention are at a premium, crafting compelling content for lead generation campaign is paramount. This rings especially true in the dynamic landscape of the tech industry, where businesses strive to differentiate themselves through cutting-edge solutions and forward-thinking strategies. We delve into the nuances of crafting content strategies tailored specifically for B2B marketing in the tech industry, from understanding the audience, their aspirations, and aligning the right messaging at each stage of the buyer journey.

Understanding Your Audience for Lead Generation

Understanding your B2B target audience is pivotal for crafting effective lead-gen marketing and lead-gen services strategies. Unlike B2C marketing, which targets individual consumers, B2B online marketing strategies focus on building business relationships. In comparison to 60% of B2C marketers, about 85% of B2B marketers use content to generate leads.  This audience comprises decision-makers and influencers within organizations, including executives, managers, and procurement officers. To resonate with this audience, it’s crucial to identify their needs, pain points, motivations, and preferences. Tailoring messaging, content, and communication channels to address these aspects ensures relevance and engagement.

Get full insights: https://itechseries.com/blog/how-to-pick-the-right-content-for-your-lead-gen-campaign/

Identifying High-Impact Content Formats for Lead Generation Campaign

Boost your tech lead generation campaign efforts with a variety of content formats tailored to the preferences of your tech-savvy audience:

Whitepapers, podcasts, and eBooks: Offer in-depth insights and practical solutions to establish your brand as a thought leader in the tech industry. Provide actionable tips, best practices, and strategies, including a strong GTM strategy, to engage prospects. About 77% of B2B marketers believe that podcasts are the best alternative for generating leads, followed closely by blog posts and articles at 76%, with videos trailing at 59%.

Case studies: Showcase real-world examples of how your tech solutions have solved challenges for other businesses, building credibility and trust. Highlight key metrics, ROI, and business outcomes to demonstrate the value of your tech solutions in driving tangible results for your customers.

Interactive tools and demos: Provide interactive experiences that allow prospects to explore your tech offerings firsthand, driving engagement and conversions. Offer interactive product demos, virtual tours, or interactive calculators that allow prospects to experience the benefits of your tech solutions in a hands-on way.

Integrate these formats into your lead gen marketing strategy to effectively capture and nurture leads. Additionally, leveraging these diverse content types within your lead gen marketing efforts can significantly enhance your ability to attract and convert potential customers in the competitive tech landscape. Reach out and chart your path to B2B success with effective lead generation.

Optimizing Content for Lead Generation campaign

Leveraging effective B2B tech marketing tactics, such as content marketing, for driving business success through brand-to-demand strategy is essential. Lead generation marketing focuses on attracting and converting prospects into potential customers. A key aspect of optimization is crafting compelling messaging aligned with the brand-to-demand strategy. Utilizing the best B2B lead generation tools and implementing A/B testing marketing techniques ensures content effectiveness and continuous improvement.

Content marketing plays a central role in lead generation campaign efforts, serving as a vehicle to engage prospects and nurture leads through buyer orientation. Employing a demand generation mindset emphasizes the importance of content marketing for B2B lead generation, ensuring that content addresses audience needs, pain points, striving interests, and actions. Businesses can enhance their online presence by optimizing content for lead gen campaign, generating qualified leads, and driving business growth. Continuous refinement through A/B testing marketing and data analysis ensures content remains effective in engaging and converting prospects, ultimately contributing to the success of the lead generation campaign.

Follow for more info: https://www.itechseries.com/

Conclusion

Crafting content is one of the key aspects of enhancing your lead-generation campaign and boosting your audience’s reach in the market. Understanding the audience, mapping content to the buyer’s journey, and identifying high-impact content formats is essential. Leveraging B2B marketing strategies, optimizing content, and continuously refining through A/B testing marketing, and GTM strategy ensures effectiveness. Businesses can enhance their online presence by prioritizing audience needs, offering valuable solutions, utilizing diverse promotion channels, generating qualified leads, and fostering growth. Boost your lead generation with content marketing by creating valuable, targeted content that attracts and engages your ideal customers.

[techninja]

Is Your B2B Brand Invisible? 3 Proven Ways to Generate Demand

Introduction

In today's competitive business landscape, having a strong presence is essential for B2B brands to thrive. However, many companies struggle with brand visibility, which directly impacts their ability to generate demand. In this article, we'll delve into the significance of B2B brand visibility and explore three proven strategies to boost demand generation.

Understanding B2B Brand Visibility

Defining Brand Visibility

B2B brand visibility refers to the extent to which a company's brand is recognized and remembered by its target audience. It encompasses various factors, including online presence, reputation, and brand awareness within the industry.

Challenges in B2B Brand Visibility

Several challenges contribute to the invisibility of B2B brands. These may include fierce competition, limited marketing budgets, complex sales cycles, and the niche nature of B2B markets. Overcoming these hurdles requires a strategic approach and targeted efforts.

The Need for Demand Generation

Why Demand Generation Matters

Demand generation is the process of creating awareness and interest in a company's products or services among potential customers. It lays the foundation for driving sales and revenue growth, making it a crucial aspect of B2B marketing.

Link Between Visibility and Demand

Brand visibility directly influences demand generation. When a B2B brand is highly visible, it attracts more attention from prospective clients, leading to increased inquiries, conversions, and ultimately, sales. Conversely, poor visibility can result in a lack of interest and minimal demand for the brand's offerings.

Proven Ways to Generate Demand

Content Marketing Strategies

Content marketing plays a pivotal role in enhancing B2B brand visibility and driving demand. By creating valuable and relevant content, such as blog posts, whitepapers, and case studies, companies can establish thought leadership, engage their target audience, and drive organic traffic to their website.

Leveraging Social Media

Social media platforms offer B2B brands a powerful tool for increasing visibility and generating demand. By actively participating in relevant discussions, sharing informative content, and connecting with industry influencers, companies can expand their reach, attract new prospects, and foster meaningful relationships with existing customers.

Building Strategic Partnerships

Collaborating with complementary businesses and industry partners can significantly boost brand visibility and demand generation. Strategic partnerships enable companies to tap into each other's networks, leverage shared resources, and access new market segments. Whether through co-marketing initiatives, joint events, or referral programs, partnerships can amplify the impact of B2B marketing efforts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, B2B brand visibility is essential for driving demand and achieving business growth. By understanding the challenges involved, prioritizing demand generation efforts, and implementing proven strategies such as content marketing, social media engagement, and strategic partnerships, companies can enhance their visibility, attract more qualified leads, and ultimately, succeed in the competitive B2B landscape.

[automotivemarketingpros]

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[kisanjeevan]

Hunar India - Digital Marketing

[fans4wga]

Is it true Tumblr is crossing the picket line by marketing One Piece?

It's unfortunate to have that show's ads blasted on all our dashboards, to be sure, but it doesn't exactly fit the definition of "crossing the picket line", which is specific strike terminology that's been muddied a bit by talk on the Internet.

Crossing a picket line generally means crossing an actual, physical picket line to work at a struck company, thereby disregarding the strikers. [Updated 1 September to clarify that crossing a picket line is specifically referring to workers crossing picket lines, not patrons.] (Recent example in the news: hotel workers on strike in California picketed hotels and called for a boycott; therefore, staying at those hotels was crossing a picket line.) It can also be used figuratively, and in that case it differs from strike to strike, depending on the specific union demands.

[Side note: there's no call for a boycott from WGA/SAG-AFTRA, so subscribing to streaming services/going to movie theaters isn't crossing a picket line at this time; however, people canceling streaming services in solidarity and leaving a note that explains they're canceling in support of the strikes is a move we wholeheartedly support! See WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser's interview about that here.]

Tumblr is a company, not a person, so SAG-AFTRA can't discipline it for marketing a Netflix show like it would discipline an individual (a stern talk from the board, or prohibiting them from SAG-AFTRA membership, etc.) There's no legal way for any union to enforce a no-marketing rule for companies. If Tumblr had a strong solidarity ethic, they'd turn down studio marketing campaigns, but that's a lot to expect from any profit-driven company and shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

So, tl;dr: crossing the picket line? Not exactly. Still a not-great thing to do? Absolutely, and you can always send Tumblr a feedback form expressing your disapproval that they're marketing for Netflix during the strikes.

[tieflingkisser]

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets

Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants

The Israeli military’s bombing campaign in Gaza used a previously undisclosed AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas, according to intelligence sources involved in the war. In addition to talking about their use of the AI system, called Lavender, the intelligence sources claim that Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed, particularly during the early weeks and months of the conflict. Their unusually candid testimony provides a rare glimpse into the first-hand experiences of Israeli intelligence officials who have been using machine-learning systems to help identify targets during the six-month war.

[...]

“This is unparalleled, in my memory,” said one intelligence officer who used Lavender, adding that they had more faith in a “statistical mechanism” than a grieving soldier. “Everyone there, including me, lost people on October 7. The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier.” Another Lavender user questioned whether humans’ role in the selection process was meaningful. “I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added-value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time.”

[...]

Several of the sources described how, for certain categories of targets, the IDF applied pre-authorised allowances for the estimated number of civilians who could be killed before a strike was authorised. Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” one intelligence officer said. Another said the principal question they were faced with was whether the “collateral damage” to civilians allowed for an attack. “Because we usually carried out the attacks with dumb bombs, and that meant literally dropping the whole house on its occupants. But even if an attack is averted, you don’t care – you immediately move on to the next target. Because of the system, the targets never end. You have another 36,000 waiting.”

[...]

“We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us,” said one intelligence officer. “We were told: now we have to fuck up Hamas, no matter what the cost. Whatever you can, you bomb.” To meet this demand, the IDF came to rely heavily on Lavender to generate a database of individuals judged to have the characteristics of a PIJ or Hamas militant.

[fiercynn]

With Palestinians breaking free of their besieged ghetto, we suddenly hear the all-too-familiar chorus of “the cycle of violence” and other such clichés. As usual, this fixation on pacifism only arises when the oppressed strike back at their oppressors. It seems that the refusal to live in a cage is not a convincing explanation for violence and armed resistance. Regardless of whether Israelis were killed or not, there was no way Palestinians could have launched an effective resistance campaign without being widely condemned or demonized. Even when resorting to tactics such as BDS campaigns to effect change, Palestinians were quickly rebuked, with critics likening the tactic to a “Nazi campaign,” and eliciting draconian legislation to legally ban the practice in places like the United States. In 2018, Gaza launched the unarmed Great March of Return to challenge the occupation and demand the right of return. It was dubbed a “riot,” and met with sniper fire, killing over 300 Palestinians, and creating an entire generation of maimed youth. Palestinian administrative detainees — prisoners held without charge, trial, or access to lawyers — are demonized for daring to go on hunger strikes. Even merely trying to access the International Criminal Court, which in theory should be the most agreeable arena to air grievances in the supposed “rules-based-international-order,” was met with hostility and rejection. These specific examples were chosen not to imply that other forms of resistance are illegitimate but rather to illustrate how even when Palestinians try to play by the non-armed rules set out for their resistance to be seen as “legitimate,” they are still framed as aggressive terrorists. There is always a reason why even the mildest methods of resistance are deemed wrong, always some technicality explaining that while “usually” this would be the right way to do things, it doesn’t apply to Palestinians. The goalposts are infinitely shifting, and it becomes glaringly obvious that the issue is not with the methods, but instead with who is undertaking them.

fathi nemer on october 24, 2023 for mondoweiss

[gootarts]

as of 8/3, the most recently updated version of this post is here (it's a reblog of this exact post with more info added)

as a lot of you know, limbus company recently fired its CG illustrator for being a feminist, at 11 pm, via phone call, after a bunch of misogynists walked into the office earlier that day and demanded she be fired. on top of this, as per korean fans, her firing went against labor laws---in korea, you must have your dismissal in writing.

the korean fandom on twitter is, understandably, going scorched earth on project moon due to this. there's a lot currently going on to protest the decision, so i'm posting a list here of what's going on for those who want to limit their time on elon musk's $44 billion midlife crisis impulse purchase website (if you are on twitter, domuk is a good person to follow, as they translate important updates to english). a lot of the links are in korean, but generally they play nicely with machine translators. this should be current as of 8/2.

Statements condemning the decision have been issued by The Gyeonggi Youth Union and IT Union.

A press conference at the Gyeonggido Assembly will occur on 8/3, with lawmakers of the Gyeonggi province (where Project Moon is based) in attendance. This appears driven by the leader of the Gyeonggi Youth Union.

The vice chairman of the IT union--who has a good amount of experience with labor negotiations like these--has expressed strong support for the artist and is working to get media coverage due to the ongoing feminist witch hunts in the gaming industry. Project Moon isn't union to my knowledge, but he's noted that he's taken on nonunion companies such as Netmarble (largest mobile game dev in South Korea) by getting the issue in front of the National Assembly (Korea's congress).

Articles on the incident published in The Daily Labor News, Korean Daily, multiple articles on Hankyoreh (one of which made it to the print edition), and other news outlets.

Segments about the termination on the MBN 7 o' clock news and MBC's morning news

Comments by Youth Union leaders about looking into a loan made to Project Moon via Devsisters Ventures, a venture capital firm. Tax money from Gyeonggi province was invested in Devsisters in 2017, and in 2021, Devsisters gave money to Project Moon. The Gyeonggi Youth Union is asking why hard-earned tax money was indirectly given to a company who violates ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles.

Almost nonstop signage truck protests outside Project Moon's physical office during business hours until 8/22 or the company makes a statement. This occurs alongside a coordinated hashtag campaign to get the issue trending on Twitter in Korea. The signage campaign was crowd-funded in about 3 hours.

A full boycott of the Limbus Company app, on both mobile and PC (steam) platforms. Overseas fans are highly encouraged to participate, regardless if whether they're F2P or not. Not opening the app at all is arguably the biggest thing any one person can do to protest the decision, as the app logs the number of accounts that log on daily. For a new gacha such as Limbus, a high number of F2P daily active users, but a small number of paying users is often preferable to having a smaller userbase but more paying users. If the company sees the number of daily users remain stable, they will likely decide to wait out any backlash rather than apologize.

Digging up verified reviews from previous employees regarding the company's poor management practices

Due to the firing, the Leviathan artist has posted about poor working conditions when making the story. As per a bilingual speaker, they were working on a storyboard revision, and thought 'if I ran into the street right now and got hit by a car and died, I wouldn't have to keep working.' They contacted Project Moon because they didn't want their work to be like that, and proposed changes to serialization/reduction in amount of work per picture/to build up a buffer of finished images (they did not have any buffer while working on Leviathan to my knowledge). They were shut out, and had to suck it up and accept the situation.

Hamhampangpang has a 'shrine' section of the restaurant for fans to leave fan-created merch and other items. They also allow the fans to take this merch back if they can prove it's theirs. Fans are now doing just that.

To boost all of the above, a large number of Korean fanartists with thousands of followers have deleted their works and/or converted their accounts from fanart accounts to accounts supporting the protests. Many of them are bilingual, and they're where I got the majority of this information.

[note 1: there's a targeted english-language disinformation campaign by the website that started the hate mob. i have read the artist's tweets with machine translation, and they're talked about in the second hankyoreh article linked above: nowhere does she express any transphobic or similarly awful beliefs. likewise, be wary of any claims that she supported anything whose description makes you raise eyebrows--those claims are likely in reference to megalia, a korean feminist movement. for information on that, i'd recommend the NPR/BBC articles below and this google drive link of english-language scholarly papers on them. for the love of god don't get your information about a feminist movement from guys going on witch hunts for feminists.]

[note 2: i've seen a couple people argue that the firing was for the physical safety of the employees, citing the kyoani incident in japan. as per this korean fan, most fans there strongly do not believe this was the case. we have english-translated transcripts of the meeting between the mob and project moon; the threats the mob was making were to......brand project moon as a feminist company online. yes, really. male korean gamers aren't normal about feminism, and there's been an ongoing witch hunt for feminists in the industry since about 2016, something you see noted in both the labor union statements. both NPR and the BBC this phenomenon to gamergate, and i'd say it's a pretty apt comparison.]

let me know if anything needs correction or if anything should be added.

[solarmorrigan]

Silly idea I talked about ages ago with @azure7539arts, inspired by a similar event my workplace hosts every year. Would minors be allowed to participate in such an event? Probably not! But then again, it was the 80s, who can say for sure. Anyway, it's my birthday and I'll post nonsense if I want to <3

-

“I need you to buy me.”

Eddie looks up from his notebook, effectively jarred from his campaign-plotting fugue state by Steve’s declaration.

Steve is standing at the other end of the dining table, staring at him expectantly.

“Y’know, this is the part where someone usually follows up their completely bonkers demand with an explanation,” Eddie says slowly.

“At the charity auction,” Steve clarifies. “I need you to bid on me, and I need you to win.”

Ah, yes, that weird Rent-an-Athlete charity auction the school runs every year; anyone on any Hawkins High sports team could volunteer to be “auctioned” off in order to raise money for said sports team, to spend a day at the beck and call of the highest bidder (within reason, supposedly). It’s generally restricted to students, but occasionally, prominent alumni are invited to participate – and Steve certainly fits the bill, especially after the story the government spun about his heroism in the face of “serial killer” Henry Creel last spring.

“And what, deny all those pretty girls a chance to get at you?” Eddie asks drily (he’d never turned up at previous auctions himself, but you could hardly avoid gossip in a school their size; it had usually been some cheerleader bidding with daddy’s money who won a date– that is, a day with Steve Harrington).

“It wasn’t always a girl who won,” Steve says, crossing his arms over his chest. “One time it was Mrs. Dalton – you know, the lady on the school board who lives on my block? I just spent the day doing yard work for her. She gave me lemonade. That was pretty cool.”

“Right,” Eddie drawls. “And I’m sure she definitely didn’t sit outside and stare at your ass while you were working.”

“She did not– she– I mean she was on the porch, but, like– she wouldn’t have– she’s, like, seventy, Eddie,” Steve splutters, and it’s all Eddie can do not to laugh.

“Older gals have needs, too, Steve,” Eddie says, giving in to a smirk. “So she was checking you out from the porch, huh?”

Steve goes red. “Shut up, that isn’t the point. I’m trying to ask for your help.”

“Right, right, your absolutely reasonable request for me to buy you at market. Why, again?” Eddie asks.

“The kids are planning to bid on me,” Steve says gravely.

Eddie blinks at him. “Okay?” he says, when no further explanation is forthcoming. “You basically do most of what they ask, anyway, so…?”

“Okay, believe it or not, I actually say no to at least half of what they ask me to do. I would literally never get anything done if I gave in to all their demands.” Steve jabs a finger at Eddie, who holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Anyway, this is all Henderson’s fault.”

“It usually is,” Eddie agrees, nodding sagely.

“He decided that he was going to bid on me and then use that day to finally make me play your nerd game with you–” Eddie snorts, and Steve shoots him a look, “but Wheeler doesn’t want me to play, so he said he was going to bid against Dustin and make me do anything but sit in on a session with you guys.”

“So let Wheeler win.” Eddie shrugs.

“No! I can’t let fuckin’ Mike win, he’ll probably make me do something even more ridiculous!” Steve exclaims. "He’ll make me play chauffeur for him and El on a date, or something, and he’ll probably include the stupid hat.”

“Wait, I thought El broke up with him,” Eddie breaks in.

“No, they’re on again,” Steve says absently, shaking his head. “Which is why Max has been in a bad mood lately.”

Eddie bites back the reflexive need to ask “How can you tell?”, going instead with, “I thought she and Sinclair were on again.”

“No, they are. That’s why no one’s been actively murdered,” Steve says.

“How do you keep track of all of this?” Eddie asks, squinting at Steve.

“It’s a natural skill. And we’re getting off track,” Steve says quickly. “Normally, I wouldn’t be that worried, because Dustin regularly blows his savings on weird science gadgets or whatever, but then Lucas and Will started taking sides.”

“This is getting very involved,” Eddie says.

“So you see why I’m stressed!” Steve insists, smacking a hand to his forehead (personally, Eddie thinks Steve is stressed for many other reasons, but he figures pointing that out just now won’t be appreciated). “Lucas is on Dustin’s side, and that kid does odd jobs like nobody’s goddamn business; he actually has shit saved up. And usually I’d have faith in him being more, like, sensible than to spend it all on this, but the little shit is really fucking competitive.”

“Wonder who he got that from?” Eddie mutters.

“Okay, we do remember that I’m not actually biologically related to any of these idiots, right?” Steve snaps.

“Well now we’re just getting into nature versus nurture–”

“Eddie.”

“Right, sorry, continue.”

“Well, Will took Mike’s side–”

“Shocking.”

“Right? But anyway, I don’t know if the kid has much saved up, but between him and Wheeler, they might be able to win.” Steve sighs, looking far more world-weary than Eddie feels the situation really warrants.

“You know you don’t actually have to do what they ask you to, right?” Eddie points out.

Steve rolls his eyes. “If an auction winner complains to the school that the person they bid on didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain, they can get their money back. It’s a whole…” he waves his hand vaguely, “thing. Happened once when I was a sophomore; Deacon McNab. Lost a good chunk of change for the football team, and they vandalized the shit out of his car.”

“Ah, right. Forgot we went to school with literal psychopaths,” Eddie hums.

“So, I just need you to bid on me and win, so I’m not stuck wasting a Saturday on whatever the hell the kids are going to try to make me do. Or not do. Or– whatever,” Steve says.

“Okay, not that I don’t understand your predicament here, but I think you’re forgetting something kind of important, Steve,” Eddie drawls.

Steve’s brows draw together in question. “What?”

“I’m fucking poor.”

“Oh.” Steve shakes his head. “I didn’t mean– no, I will give you the money, you don’t have to spend a dime, man, I just need you to get me out of this.”

“Why not have Buckley do it?” Eddie asks.

“That was Plan A, but she actually has a date that night, and it’s kind of a big deal, so I don’t want her to cancel,” Steve says. “But I assumed you wouldn’t be busy.”

“Wow, rude,” Eddie scoffs, and Steve sighs.

“Fine, sorry, I just really hoped you wouldn’t be busy.” Steve gives him the most lethal set of puppy dog eyes Eddie has ever seen, as if there had been any chance from the beginning that he’d be able to say no. “Please?”

Just for show, Eddie lets out a long sigh, falling against his chair and letting his head flop over the backrest like he’s deflating.

“Fine.”

“Thank you,” Steve groans, sounding so genuinely relieved that Eddie almost feels bad about how quickly his thoughts dip into the realms of the inappropriate. “Oh my god, I owe you.”

Eddie glances back up at Steve, tongue darting out to wet his lips almost unconsciously. “You know I’m not as easy to appease as a couple of fifteen-year-olds, right?”

Steve’s eyes drop for just a second—maybe down to Eddie’s lips, maybe not; who can say?—before he looks back up, cocking an eyebrow at Eddie. “I think I can handle it.”

Slowly, Eddie grins. “We’ll see.”

[wilwheaton]

DNC speakers painted a clear picture of Trump, his history as president, and his frightening agenda if he wins a second term. But fact-checkers clouded that image to Trump’s benefit. For example, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler challenged Hillary Clinton’s statement that Kamala Harris “won’t be sending love letters to dictators.” Trump himself said in 2018 about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un: “We fell in love, okay? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” Still, Kessler insists the truth of Clinton’s statement about love letters “is in the eye of the beholder.” Clinton’s actual point is that Trump openly admires and cozies up to dictators and autocrats — not a great trait for the leader of the free world. Kessler insists “there is no evidence” Trump personally sent love letters to Kim Jong Un, and while that’s true — he might have just received them and responded by praising Kim publicly — it’s beside the point. Whether Trump literally writes steamy notes to dictators isn’t relevant. The issue is that Trump’s a wannabe despot.

What's wrong with the fact-checkers?

This is why I argue that the Harris campaign has no reason to prioritize talking to a corporate press. These lazy writers who should give back their journalism degrees and the feckless editors they answer to absolutely know better, yet they continue to take Trump at his word while nitpicking every single thing that a Democrat says. It’s Calvinball.

Everyone under 50 knows that corporate media is a waste of time if you want to know the truth, and that’s a real shame because a functioning Democracy demands a strong, independent, fiercely aggressive and publicly accountable press that follows the truth, wherever it leads.

I hope that the current generation of independent journalists (the real ones, like Jessica Yellin, not the Incelfluencers who spew right wing talking points) continues to expose corporate news media as the unreliable propaganda it too often is.

When I hear folks at the Times, the Post, CNN and other corporate outlets complain about how they don’t get any respect from a campaign that is getting its message out without their misleading spin and editorializing, I love it for them, and wonder if they’ll look in the mirror long enough to actually do something to earn back the respect they seem utterly baffled they have lost.