#not directed at anyone. just ive been seeing so many of those lately in twitter and i am exploding !!!

[hyper-cryptic]

I hate redfield bloodline jokes. They're not funny and they're weird! Stop it!

[if-the-crown-fits-translate-it]

Duchy Conversation 4

[27/03, 4:29 AM GMT - 27/03, 6:13 AM GMT]

[The following transcript details the conversation is between one of the Crown ARG Discord members and Duke on Twitter]

Donti: “Hi! How was your day?

Its me again :)c

((If its late or youre sleeping dw about responding :p))”

Duke: “Forgive my tardiness, my embroidery was enchanting me so that my ears laid unaware!

How do you do, Donti? It is the Duke speaking. I must say, my sister has quite the opinion of you!”

Donti: “Oh its great to talk to you again Duke :D I hope I left a good impression! Is your embroidery going well?”

Duke: “It is going quite splendid! The Crown truly does spoil us, giving my sister and I such rich-coloured thread. Truly we are fortunate for his generosity and love.”

Donti: “Ohh! Good colors always make embroidery fun! What are you making?”

Duke: “I must ask though - as a sheep yourself why must you graze on such nimble hearts? Wolves are not supposed to concern themselves with the opinions and thoughts of prey such as yourselves but Prince is but a pup, why must you all be so cruel? I am quite interested in the answer, you see, because it is I who saw the tear tracks down faers face and I who heard the drums of despair in this household.”

Donti: “Oh..

Are you talking about blunt anon?

All of us are very angry at them, whoever they are.

I promise they do not reflect us as a whole.”

Duke: “To answer your previous question however, I am making a rose for Baroness. I do feel horribly for how I was unable to aid her with her spoiled dress so I do hope this gift soothes her and shows that there is no ill will from I to her.”

Donti: “Thats nice! Baroness loves flowers and nature! Thats super thoughtful of you. Im sure she'll love it :D

But back to Prince... Are fae ok? we're worried about faem.”

Duke: “"Blunt anon" is quite a peculiar name I must say. Indeed that is the scoundrel I speak of. It is wonderful to hear that you all are not that way - frankly, if I suspected you were the one to make Prince cry I would have simply neglected to respond, as is customary when one deals with enemies of one's family. Prince is currently recuperating, poor thing. A bleeding heart only leads to death and yet fae still has not learned that yet. I do wish you to send out a warning if you would be so kind - do let anyone know that if they ever treat Duchess in such a matter they will swiftly come to regret it. A gentleman does not revel in violence but she is my most dearest sister.

I thank you for your kind words however, I do indeed hope she enjoys my gift so - do not tell the others but she may be the only one in this family I can truly connect to on an intellectual setting, besides my sister of course.”

Donti: “Ill tell people not to be rude to Duchess. Not that they would.. Im pretty sure they like her :D”

Donti: “"Blunt anon" came when people would send... Rude asks to people. It was originally just blunt questions. But it escalated to... What happened to Prince :( We're trying to find them, but theres only so much we can do

Oh wait! have other people reached out to you all yet?”

Donti: “I know some of my good friends have talked to duchess.. But not to you yet!”

Duke: “Ah, indeed people have reached out and only Duchess was there to greet them. It pains me of course but I found myself with activities to do throughout the day. Schooling is still important to Duchess and I so that took up quite a bit of time - do not tell Crown but I was indeed spending time taking in the beauty of ballet instead of working purely on my Latin. Tea time too is an important affair, especially for I, and then it is always important to spend time with ones sister! So alas, you have been the only one I have graced with my thoughts and feelings out of your crowd of sheep.”

Donti: “Hm. I like the name sheep... Its a little kinder than "plebs"

You seems to like a lot of.. Elegant things! (I hope thats the right word) like embroidery and ballet! Where did you learn such refined taste :oc”

Duke: “Where did I learn such refined tastes? They have always been apart of me, you must understand. The Crown helped unlock those parts that I kept buried deep away and help nurture them. Oh such a brute I used to be! No care for the finer things in life, only one-upping my beloved sister. To think I used to slide in the dirt just for a measly point - bah! Truly I am in much debt to the Crown, for without him I still may have been a unruly fool.”

Donti: “... You played sports before you met Crown?”

Duke: “My sister and I both did, yes. It does not do well to dwell on such miserable times, Donti. This is why little one you are still a lamb.”

Donti: “Oh! If you don't want to talk about it, you dont have to! ^u^ Friends dont force their friends to talk about uncomfortable things!

Hm... But if the plebs are sheep... And I am a lamb... Who is the shepard...?”

Duke: “How sweet! Tell me, little lamb, who do you think the shepherd is? Or if there is one at all?

If you are a little lamb then I must ask, is there a Mary to be found alongside you as well?”

Donti: “Hm.... I think from our perspective the shepherd, (or shepherds in this case) would be our lovely mods :D

But from your point of view? Its most definitely Crown!

Andd.. Im assuming a Mary is a leader... Little lambs follow Mary after all... Hm. A lot of us have shown leadership at some point in time or another! It really depends on the scenario!”

Duke: “Intriguing.

It depends on the scenario you say?”

Donti: “Yep! People take charge depending on whats happening, and sometimes theres no leadership, just us discussing and working through it!

Why do you ask?”

Duke: “When the flocks have gone and left and all there is is the gentle bobbing of the water, who do you trust to save you from drowning? While you thrash and scream and feel yourself weaken who do you look towards for guidance? When the taste of salt kisses the interior of your esophagus whose name is on the tip of your dying tongue?

For I, it is the Crown, as he saved my sister and I from exactly that fate - but who is it for you?”

Donti: “Hm.. As a "flock" we all support one another.. That way, we can have multiple points of support! One person supporting that many people would be very stressful for that one person, you know”

Duke: “Of course.

Even then in a home all parts play along and join in the symphony but even with that, some are still load-bearing.

Who would be your load-bearing walls? All I ask is for some simple names, you understand. My curiosity is much like a cat, you see. Only satisfaction may truly bring me back.”

Donti: “Hm.. Are you asking for the names of my friends?

Well. There's Jack and Raeva, whom Duchess has spoken with, I think. Llyr, Ren, and Luna are also friends of mine. But I try not to burden them.

They are not so much load bearing pillars, but more of frail walls to shield me from the cold.”

Duke: “The drifting breezes that bring forth frost and tremors truly are such tiresome times. That you have shields is wonderful and it does ease my heart, but I do feel as though I must impart some wisdom else I'd be an unfavourable acquaintance - do try and build yourself a roaring inferno, little sheep.

Have so much fire around yourself that the winds cannot glance your way and even the Grand Archer Yi looks on with fear.”

Donti: “... And what if the fire burns me?

What then?”

Duke: “Do you think yourself unable to control the flames?”

Donti: “...Yes. Flames are temperamental, after all. When the inferno's dried up every last bit of water and eaten all of the wood, what will it turn to?”

Duke: “You want the answer to be yourself, I can see you reaching for it with an outstretched palm. Here is the truth: you can quell flames easily with just a few words. You can breathe in the ash and let the smoke dissipate. You do not have to be burned.

Ah, but these are just fun matters to think about. Do not dwell on my words too much. I would hate for you to overthink just simple pondering.”

Donti: “...Ill take your words to heart, friend. Even if it's just banter.

How do you know this?”

Duke: “Do not cause yourself concern with such a thing. In case I have caused you to distress then please do take this video as repentance. Isn't it so lovely how she spins?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqejv_BQ7Zg”

Donti: “Oh! that is a pretty video.. I wonder how long it took for her to make it so effortless..?

Do you dance?”

Duke: “Such an exquisite form of art. The mastery she has put forth would bring others to shame and ruin. A true professional since birth. I myself do not dance in this way - my sister and I are well versed in the waltz and ballroom dance as is customary for our statuses - but ballet alludes me. Alas, if only that was the direction I chose for my life to go but no matter - I have embroidery, poetry and oil painting to keep me truly green from envy.”

Donti: “Those are very enviable hobbies! I imagine you're skilled at them too! As for ballet... Ive heard that in order to dance that way, one has to go through great pain. I'd hate for you to experience that”

Duke: “A bit of suffering is always worth the pain if beauty and joy can be received in the end, do you not think?”

Donti: “As long as youre happy, I suppose!

I’m sorry to cut this short, but its getting late for me! And probably for you too ^^

I hope you rest well!”

Duke: “I hope you have humble dreams and a quiet rest. Goodnight, little lamb.”

[wheretogofrmhere]

i've stanned niall for years now and he's my favourite person in the whole wide world but for the past few months i've felt a bit different, it's not the same as it used to be and i can guarantee you this has nothing to do with Hailee. maybe all the drama from fans made it worse but before all of this happened i already felt like i had lost a bit of interest. i saw him 2 months ago and it was the best day of my life but the whole 'stanning' phase just seems to be fading away (+)

(-) i still like him and his music but many things have changed. i used to spend most of my time on him and i still do but im not enjoying it anymore. i wanna be like those fans who support his career by streaming his music, buying his stuff and attending his concerts but dedicating such a big part of my life running blogs and keeping up with absolutely everything he does doesn’t sound like an option to me now. i feel really bad, weird and guilty because my world has spinned around him for  many years and i don’t even remember my life before becoming a fan. im so used to him, to do what i do every single day like checking his updates and stuff. my life isn’t very busy so it’s always been easy to dedicate all my time to him: reading about him, writing about him, editing photos and videos of him, etc. but none of that feels as good as before. there are times where i feel inspired but lately most of the times i’ve felt forced to be the fan i was just months ago. he’s still my favourite person. i love and respect him but i don’t feel like ‘kissing his ass’ and praising everything he does or says like i used to. i guess we’re both growing up and probably going to different directions tho that doesn’t really change my love and admiration for him. both are still there but i don’t know, nothing is the same. im not sure why this is happening... maybe i’ve grown up (not saying growing up means unstanning or anything) and i see things different, maybe i realized there are more important things to worry about (im still trying to figure out what ~those things are) or maybe im tired not of niall but of all the shit being a hardcore stan implies. as soon as he announces tour dates i will be the first one to snatch front row tickets tho!! but i don’t want anyone to think i don’t deserve it or that im a fake fan just because i don’t live far up his ass anymore. im probably making a big deal out of nothing but feeling like this about niall is completely new to me. my love for him is still big and strong, but you know... calling myself a big niall ‘stan’ is not what i want. just wanna be supportive without getting too involved. 3

i dont know where this idea came from that there is a “right and wrong” way to be a fan. as if bc you dont have a blog or a twitter dedicated to them or contribute to the fandom in some way (i.e. gifs, edits, writing etc) that you arent considered a real fan. ive never understood that. only bc a lot of bands/musicians dont have stuff like that, or at least not a majority of the fans are like that. so....i feel like, if thats not how you want to be a fan of him anymore, thats fine. theres nothing wrong with just being a casual fan and going on about your regular life. if thats what makes you happiest. 

[stateofgrace-acoustic]

Taylor and Me

with reputation out and me loving it so much, i keep getting really nostalgic and astonished by how long i’ve been a fan of taylor’s and al the things she has accompanied me through. so i felt like posting a little reflection thing, feel free to ignore totally :D

like a lot of people Love Story was the first song of hers I heard. i was on the bus home with one of my friends and she let me listen to it. i was so young back then, oh my god. (like 12?) i think i found it catchy, but didn’t think much about it afterwards until two people had a presentation on taylor in music class. (we were all supposed to introduce our favorite artists). they played some more songs from fearless, and i can’t recall exactly what my reaction was but i know i wanted the album. i asked the presentation people if i could borrow it, and i remember looking through the booklet thinking how beautiful it was. i think even back then when i was so young i sort of intuitively understood what an amazing songwriter taylor was and how much work and effort she puts into everything she does.

fearless was for me very much an escapism record. i listened to it to enter this realm of magic and fairytales and dancing in the rain that was so far away from my everyday life and issues. i could never really apply her love songs to my life in a direct way, but i still felt like they were relatable for me, in a more abstract way - the feeling that came with them, a sort of freedom and passion, was how i felt in my happiest moments, when i didn’t feel inhibited by fear and doubt as i often did. and her nostalgic and sad moments i could relate to my own nostalgia as well. 

my mom bought me the fanbook for christmas, and that’s when i started being interested in taylor as a person as well., and how she sort of became my role model. i read about her childhood and the way she tried to achieve her dream so hard until she succeeeded. about how she wasn’t afraid to put herself out there, to open herself up completely in her songs. i admired how she put kindness above all else, how in touch she was with her fans, but also how intelligent she was and how all of her decisions in her career were her own, how she didn’t let anyone else take control over what her life or ‘image’ to the public should be. all of those things and values i took to heart and tried to live them in my own life as much as possible. looking back now i couldn’t be happier with my choice of a role model. taylor helped guide me through some years that were difficult, as they are for pretty much every teenager i guess. ‘fearless is living in spite of the things that scare you to death’ was the motto i needed so much in my life, because i was very much defined and trapped by my fears in my teenage years - of social interaction, of taking risks, of failure.. taylor’s music was something i could always turn back to to give me strength.

i remember when speak now was announced, i was excited out of my mind. i wrote the tracklist down onto my computer and kept looking at it. i loved all the released singles so much and listened to them for days on end. i painted 13s onto my hands and danced around the living room. that is one of the main things that comes to my mind when i think of happy teenage memories: this image of me dancing to a taylor swift song. 

speak now was an album that completely blew me away. i loved every single track from the first listen. it is still so incredible to me how she wrote that album completely by herself at 19; how talented she is with lyrics and melodies that completely fit together. i had some fan account back then on twitter and didnt shut up about taylor ever. 

around that time, my parents and i were planning this huge vacation in Calfornia that would turn out to be one of my best - perhaps THE best experience of my teenage years, and we figured out that a the time we wanted to go, the Speak Now tour was in LA. my parents agreed to get tickets because they knew how much it meant to me, and also because they were lowkey fans themselves:D you can’t imagine how happy i was. it was my first concert ever, and the fact that i got to experience it in that huuuge location with so so many other people, it was like a dream. i was pretty far away from the stage at the side, but it was perfect for me - i think the huge crowd would have overwhelmed me. i was completely enthralled by the huge setup, the stage aesthetics, the costume changes, just how big and well planned it all was. i ended up thinking all concerts were like this, but i remember my dad saying that artists usually don’t talk that much during concerts. but taylor told the stories behind her songs, universal experiences that people could relate to, inspirational messages she wanted to get out to her fans. she really cared so much about connecting with all of us. when she was in the love story cage thing flying around the arena she even waved in the direction of our seating area even though we were so far up! 

my favorite song from speak now was always long live, and i had desperately wanted her to play the song for the entire night. i loved all the rest, obviously, but i was telling myself not to be disappointed if it would be cut out. but then, almost at the end, she did play it! you can imagine small!me standing there almost crying quietly singing along in a state of absolute happiness. the memory makes me tear up right now ahhh, it was such an amazing moment. 

then came up the red era, and i remember staying up til super late to watch the announcement of the new album. the thing is...to make it short, red simply came too early for me. i was not ready, and not being able to fully comprehend and appreciate, the emotional maturity and sheer genius of the red album. i did not really like wanegbt at first. when red came out i did listen to it a lot and like it, but like i said, i could not fully appreciate it. hearing the general fandom discussions i feel like a lot of people had a similar experience, because red was such a leap from speak now in terms of the tone of the writing. im also gonna be honest here, i was influenced by the negative portrayal of taylor in the media that kinda reached its first peak back then, and even though i didnt buy into what they said about her because i knew better, it still influenced me like subconsciously, you know? i was also a bit sceptical at her direction towards pop music. so overall, i became a bit distanced from taylor. i felt like i needed to ‘outgrow’ her. a lot of it also had to do with the fact that it was my Edgy Phase where i thought being normal was a bad thing and i wanted to be as Special and Grownup as possible. (i think everyone has that cringeworthy phase sometime in their life but i hate remembering it:D). 

but the thing is, i think i needed that kind of alienation to eventually realize that taylor had grown up just like i had, but that didn’t mean we had to grow apart. by the time 1989 was announced i had actually done a great leap in maturity and had outgrown this thing where you idealize celebrities, and was able to see taylor as a person, with flaws and insecurities like everyone else, and that this didnt diminish her incredible talent of what a kind and wonderful person she is. 

i was not the biggest fan of 1989 itself (multiple reasons; i still liked it though, just didnt love it), but paradoxically, I felt closer to taylor again during the new era than during red. i kinda missed the red era now and regretted that i wasnt more involved when it was there (i still do). but i loved taylor’s new attitude, i was glad she had found happiness in independence and relying on herself. i loved the cat videos and the polaroids and the voice memos that gave insight into the creation of the songs. also, blank space was my jam and still is. since that ive been a huge fan of this super smart move of hers of taking all the things people throw at her and embodying it ironically. iconic!!

so since i was a bit more involved again (though clearly not as much as in my early swiftie days) i wanted to see the 1989 tour, and did! throughout the show i realized how much had changed, but also everything - the important things - that stayed the same (her interactions with the fans, the speeches, etc.) and i had tons of fun. it was like a giant party with strangers - which is obviously a very different feel to speak now, but loved it :D

i was worried that taylor would go into hiatus after 1989 because she always talked about how it was her best work yet, and it broke so many records and won so many awards, that i thought she might be scared she couldnt top it, and taylor always wants to top herself. i ended up being right, though the hiatus was more about all the drama and accusations because people just cant stop being awful. they cant take the idea of a smart talented woman who also shows vulnerability. 

but ive been awaiting a new album all this time, because generally i thought taylor doing pop had so much potential, i just wasnt completely a fan of the general direction of 1989. however....i never would have imagined loving the album as much as i do. i wrote a separate review about it, but basically - i totally love how reputation is big and confident but also super up close, intimate and deep at the same time. it’s darker, but it’s a powerful and sensitive sort of dark at the same time, if that makes sense. i can totally vibe to the general mood of the album because i think i can relate it to how i feel about my life right now a lot. also loving how taylor has truly found a place of happiness and trust after having been let down by ...the world?...so harshly. i love the aesthetic of the magazines and the poems, just everything about this era.

so basically, this album has completely pulled me back again to stanning taylor, and i think it’s kinda beautiful how i’ve come ‘full circle’ and am now back to hyping her music again as i used to :) i connect some of my most life defining and most precious memories with taylor, and i am glad i somehow found back to her and her music as i start off my twenties. 

im looking forward to getting involved in the fandom again so much, and i can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for us all :’)

[jaketapper]

Remarks to the Canadian Journalism Foundation

Last night I was honored with the Tribute at the Canadian Journalism Foundation awards in Toronto, Canada. Below are my prepared remarks; I deviated from the text slightly and tried to make edits below to better reflect what I said.

I want to thank the CJF and more specifically the Gala Committee - David Walmsley, Maureen Shaughnessy Kitts and Natalie Turvey - for selecting me for this tribute.

I would also like to thank Peter Mansbridge for those lovely remarks and more importantly for his decades at the CBC, serving as a beacon for anchors across the continent, speaking truth to power, and calm to panic. I know this nation has come to depend on you to guide it through times of difficulty and joy, and I know she will miss your nightly presence.

It is such an honor to receive this award, especially as someone who isn’t Canadian, someone born in New York and raised in Philadelphia. I was seven during the American Bicentennial in Philadelphia, the heart of American democracy, so it was interesting when a few years ago i began doing some genealogical research and discovered that many of my ancestors, the Huffs, fought in the Revolutionary War. The surprise was that they fought for the British and then fled to Canada. They continued to fight on your side in the war of 1812. This was of course something of a rude awakening for a Philly boy.

Of course i knew of my Canadian roots -- My mother was born in Ottawa, and came to the U.S. with her family when she was 7. My grandfather Everett Palmatier fought with the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II serving on the HMCS Cobalt, a Flower-class corvette that participated in escorting convoys in the Atlantic. My grandmother Helen worked as a confidential secretary for the Canadian government. My great uncle Edwin Palmatier, a tailgunner, was shot down and killed by the Luftwaffe in that war. There is a lake named after him in this country. In January 1917, one hundred years ago, my great great grandfather David Dyson, a pickle and vinegar merchant was the mayor of Winnipeg -- for four days. He lost the recount.

Now, if I were Tom I would make a joke about how Peter Mansbridge covered that recount. But I am not so I will not.

Grammie and Grampie and Uncle Edwin and David Dyson are no longer with us, but i brought my mother here tonight and I want to take a moment to honor her for not only having been a loving and selfless mother but for having instilled in me concepts of compassion and decency that i hope have shaped the way i live and also how i perceive my responsibility as a journalist. Thank you, Mom. I love you.

I would also be remiss if i did not take a moment to thank another great son of Canada, a mentor to so many of us who had the pleasure of working with him, my former boss at ABC news, the late great Peter Jennings. Peter was a tireless and fearless and obstinate boss. And he taught me so much and the world, and the world of journalism, is lesser for his passing.

As for this award...just looking at the list of prior honorees -- Tina Brown and Sir Harold Evans, Malcolm Gladwell, Robert MacNeill, Morley Safer and Graydon Carter -- that is pretty august company. Though the ones who mean the most to me are the 2012 posthumous tribute to Jennings and the man who did more to make me a journalist than anyone else, the late great David Carr, honored in 2013. I like to think somewhere David and Peter are watching this presentation, frustrated that they can’t break through and criticize me and make sure that i’m not letting anything go to my head. Don’t worry guys, I got the lesson. You taught me well.

And of course as well all know, people like Peter and myself get the attention, but journalism is truly a team effort. From the lowest level intern to the highest executive, I couldn’t do what I do without everyone at CNN. Everyone in this room knows what a team effort journalism is. Three from my team are here -- Jessica Stanton, John Robinson, and Lauren Pratapas -- and without them and without the leadership of my boss Jeff Zucker, as well as John Martin and Jeff Bewkes, none of this would be possible.

In three days I’ll be giving my first commencement address ever, at my alma mater, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and Ive been thinking a lot about what then President Eisenhower told students in the 1953 commencement:

He said: “Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. … How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, and what it teaches, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it?...And we have got to fight it with something better, not try to conceal the thinking of our own people. They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn't America.”

This was Eisenhower talking about communism during the Cold War and the Red Scare -- and he was arguing that the Communists should come out and engage in the battle place of ideas and we should welcome them

That battleplace of ideas is something I think about a lot

Especially when liberals tell me not to put Republicans or Trump supporters on my shows. Using Ike’s words, I ask them, How will you win an election against Trump and Trumpism unless you know what it is, and what it teaches, to paraphrase Ike, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it?

And for those in journalism who do not understand the appeal of President Trump to 62,979,636 Americans, it is also important to try to understand the phenomenon so many of us failed to see coming. If you strip away the falsehoods and the bigotry and the occasional indecencies -- more on them later -- but if you strip those away there are propositions that are completely legitimate -- fixing a broken system in Washington, making sure the elites and the government do more to protect American jobs and lives and livelihoods. We in the media need to rise to the moment and allow these disrupting debates to happen, and let the best ideas win.

But all that said, I am concerned about the weapons being deployed by the president and forces allegiant to him in this battlefield. I am concerned about the lies and smears, I am concerned about the moments of indecency, and for this audience especially I am referring of course to his calling stories he doesn’t like -- ones that are entirely 100% accurate -- “fake news,” and thus successfully undermining the 4th estate with a large segment of the population.

On January 12, a team of reporters including me, Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez, and Carl Bernstein reported the following: “Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.” It went on from there.

There is not one word of this story that is not accurate. And yet this is the story President Trump used to first attack CNN as “fake news.” A term that used to refer to actual fake stories -- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or more recently the such as the nonsense that there was a Satanic pedophilia ring linked to a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. with ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now it stands for stories the president does not like.

And he does not like a lot of them. And while yes there have been some minor media missteps almost all of the stories he’s called fake news have been proven to be true.

Every politician lies. Hillary Clinton falsely claimed FBI “Director Comey said my answers were truthful.” Barack Obama claimed if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.

But the sheer number of falsehoods and factual flip-flops coming from this White House is staggering. NATO is obsolete, now it isn’t. Jobless numbers are bogus, now they’re real.

And what’s worse we have a situation now where prevarications are not only supported by the administration and its allies in the media but by an entire dark Army of twitter trolls and meme creators here and abroad who work to undermine the work and reputations of those who either oppose the president and his policies within the party or Congress or those of us in the media who are attempting to provide basic non partisan guidance on what is going on while trying to uphold basic facts and decency.

The great discomfort here for Americans is we want our leaders to be credible. The great discomfort for journalists is that if a president declares war on truth, those who try to stand by truth and defend her are then labeled partisans, or biased.

We are not supposed to be fighters on the battlefield. We are not the opposition to President Trump, we are not the resistance.

We all are trying to figure out the way to cover this new world where fact and decency often seems to mean so little. And I do think that we as journalists need to defend truth and decency.

But I also think that too many journalists sometimes allow themselves to get swept up and we cannot have that, we cannot have a world where we act like the opposition. We in the 4th estate must rise to the occasion of this challenge. And by that I don’t only mean that we work harder than ever to avoid the kinds of mistakes that undermine our profession by avoiding stories that get key facts wrong, but that we also refrain from sharing every emotion the moment we experience it on twitter. And that we consider the low regard many members of the public have for us, and that we work hard to be fair to all points of view -- even the side whose members are attacking us and attempting to undermine us -- the policies they advocate, not the attacks.

And let me say a word about those attempts to undermine. Tom Friedman writes in his new book Thank You For Being Late about the advances of technology compared to the human ability to adapt to these changes. The chart of technology looks like this…..the chart of our ability to adapt to technology looks like this. We are way behind as a society where technology is -- i recently read that the average smartphone is millions of times more powerful than all of NASA’s combined computing in 1969

So what does that mean? It means that when your Uncle shared a website called the Denver Guardian -- and a story headlined “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead” -- and spreads the story using on Facebook -- he has no idea what’s going on. His sophistication is here on the chart. The technology is here.

I have seen US Senators and US Members of the House -- and I know no one would do this in your Parliament -- but members of the U.S. House and Senate have invoked websites I do not consider to be credible -- not just on the right but on the left. Recently after Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah announced he would be leaving Congress, Congresswoman Maxine Waters -- a Democrat of California recently lionized by the left -- went on MSNBC and said of him “There are those who think that he in some ways, have some connections to what is going on in the...Ukraine and perhaps in Russia itself, and knows something about all of this. I don’t really know. I can’t say, but he’s strange in the way that he’s conducting himself...Maybe [Chaffetz] thinks that if he rolls out and points to the fact that something is going on with Flynn ... that somehow this will raise [Chaffetz] above maybe what connections he may have with the Kremlin, we need to keep an eye on him.”

This is crazy; it’s madness. And to point out that this is going on on the Left is not to promote a false equivalence with the fact that it is going on at a much greater scale from a much larger platform on the right. 

But lies are lies. Irresponsible fact-free speculation does not become less irresponsible because of a conspiracy peddler’s political affiliation or gender or anything else.

I did not become a journalist to be a fact-checker or a truth-squadder, i became a journalist to hold people in power accountable, to try to tell stories other journalists weren’t telling, and to try to have serious discussions about the way policies impact people’s lives. Probably why a lot of people in this room became journalists.

I did not become a journalist to become a meme or to watch a younger far better looking man portray me on Saturday Night Live, although thanks for that.  But there is a lot of attention on us today as the fourth estate finds itself trying to stand up for basic standards of decency and truth.

And while it is important that we not take the bait and become the opposition that Trump and Bannon would like to cast us as -- thus de-legitimizing ourselves -- it is also important that we not sway the other direction. We cannot pretend that lies don’t need to be called out. We cannot shrug and talk about how a politician’s supporters don’t care about behavior that empirically is offensive. We cannot lower the standards that we as a society hold just for access to big name interviews. We have to be able to look our children in the eyes. We cannot not lower our standards because of attrition and exhaustion or because colleagues are making other decisions, or because Fox, Breitbart and online trolls will lie about us otherwise. 

This is a time for all of us in the 4th estate and indeed all of us in North America s to stand up for what we know is right. Objectivity. Truth. Decency. Facts.

My late grandmother, Helen McDowell Palmatier, born 101 years ago in Winnipeg, was an expert on Sir Winston Churchill, so with your permission I would like to end these remarks by quoting him.

Churchill once said: “A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny… Under dictatorship the press is bound to languish…But where free institutions are indigenous to the soil and men have the habit of liberty, the press will continue to be the Fourth Estate, the vigilant guardian of the rights of the ordinary citizen.”

Thank you for this honor.

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Hi all, I recently wrote this post about how Drip screwed over its most loyal customers and I thought perhaps /r/Entrepreneur would get value out of my lessons learned.----If you’re not familiar, Drip is email marketing software that’s pretty heavy on the marketing automation front. I won’t do them the courtesy of a link, so you’ll have to Google them if you want to check it out.They’ve been around since 2012 or so, founded by someone I trusted, but he sold the business to Leadpages a few years ago, and it’s been going downhill ever since.I’ve been using them for years as the backbone of two “side” businesses: IndieHive, which covers this website for freelancers and the related products and services that I sell, and Everleads, a curated lead generation site for freelance designers and developers.In 2016 and 2017, I really dug deep into Drip. I built out dozens of interconnected workflows to carefully shepherd my subscribers through various funnels and sequences with duplicate emails or annoying content that’s not relevant to them. I integrated my web front-end with their APIs so that I could customize the site for subscribers. I wrote bridging scripts to connect it to Mixpanel for analytics, and I used Zapier to hook Drip up to even more services. It was the heart of my entire business, and it was awesome.But throughout 2018, things started to go awry.I kept experiencing glitches in the workflows where people would get stuck on workflow steps that should be instant, like “remove tag”. Or people would end one workflow and start another, but not have any of the data that the first workflow had set. There were honestly dozens of these little glitches, but individually they were minor.Also troubling: deliverability started to slip. Not precipitously, and I can’t prove that it wasn’t just my emails, but I have heard from others that they were having issues with getting their emails into people’s inboxes in 2018.But the most egregious thing for all of this was that support was basically no help at all. I probably opened two dozen support requests in 2018 and I’m not sure they actually resolved a single one. We’d spend hours going back and forth so they could even understand the problem. Then they’d almost always say one of two things:“For a workaround, just insert a number of delays between steps in your workflows so that the system doesn’t get confused!” So all my workflows had little 5 minute delay steps to try and make sure things worked correctly. Which they still didn’t. Wtf.Or they’d just say they need to escalate to the developers and then I’d get an email weeks or months later from some random support engineer letting me know they were still looking into why the most basic functions of their software don’t work right. Awesome.Alarmed by this, I repeatedly researched alternatives throughout 2018, but nothing seemed worth going through the pain of migration and the risk of just having similar issues somewhere else. So I kept resolving to be patient with Drip and hope (pray) that they were hard at work at undoing whatever architectural disaster had led us here.And then…In early January 2019, while I was on a relaxing cruise with my wife for our 15th anniversary, I got an email from Drip:https://ryanwaggoner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/drip-bullshit-pricing-email-2.pngSo basically: “Hey, we’re raising our prices in 12 days! You can keep your current price if you switch to an annual plan!”And if you read it carefully, there’s something pretty important missing from this email.It doesn’t say what the new pricing is**. Seriously wtf.**So I emailed to ask. They responded the next day (so now I have 11 days) to reveal they were doubling my monthly price.Drip raised my price from $184 / month to $368 / month with 12 days notice.That’s just about the worst way imaginable to treat your oldest and most loyal customers.And it was the last straw for me.Now, to be clear, I completely understand wanting to grow a company in a new direction, or thinking that you need to raise prices to reflect more value.But you don’t do it when your platform is half-broken, you don’t do it with 12 days notice, and you grandfather in existing customers, at least for long enough for them to migrate. Also, you tell them the price when you tell them that prices are rising.It’s hard to imagine how Drip could have been more disrespectful to their customer base than what they did here.So as of last month, I switched all my subscribers to ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign for Everleads and IndieHive, respectively. That’s thousands of dollars that Drip won’t be getting from me. I managed to get both setups completely migrated off just before their billing renewal dates, in one case with literal minutes to spare.It was a pain and required some late nights but it was worth it to deny them another penny.I’m not alone in feeling upset about this. Twitter was ablaze for weeks with people who were angry and bailing for greener, more respectful pastures. I’ve taken a sick joy in watching a lot of people migrate off Drip with much larger lists than mine.I also cancelled Leadpages in favor of Instapage. I was already unhappy with Leadpages, mainly because it feels pretty clunky and dated, they aren’t very responsive to user feedback, and they’re still missing some pretty basic things (like being able to pass form data to the thank you page. Seriously?).Side note: I was going to link to the Leadpages idea portal, but they apparently shut it down. Makes sense, since it was filled with hundreds of good ideas with many, many customer votes that had been ignored for years.Regardless, even if Leadpages was awesome, they own Drip and I won’t give another penny to such an unethical company that treats its customers so poorly.And this migration was a huge pain (which is what they were counting on), partly because of how complex my Drip setups were, but also because ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are both pretty different from each other and from Drip. On the surface, they all do some of the same things, but once you dig in, things diverge, which made the migration especially painful.Drip is complicated. Stupidly so. In fact, it’s so complicated that there are a number of problems using it:It doesn’t really work. I mean, it does like 99% of the time, but that last 1% means that some of your subscribers are going to have a bad time. And it’s not just that their emails won’t show up. They might just get stuck in a workflow, or skip some emails in a sequence, or get things at the wrong times, or lose data, etc. And since this happens randomly, the number of subscribers who experience it accumulates over time.The customer support reps don’t really know how it works, because it’s too complicated. So you end up spending hours writing up descriptions of the problem and putting together screencasts to show how things don’t seem to be working, and the only response you get is that they’ll have to ask the developers.It encourages you to setup really fancy complex automations which, even if they did work, are way beyond what you actually need. Just imagine: you can do anything! You can track everything! You can have an unlimited number of tags and fields! Track and automate all the things!Your setup can end up being really brittle and deeply tied to the Drip architecture, which is a problem if you want to migrate off. And it’s hard to expand and modify over time without breaking all kinds of things for your subscribers who are in those automations.The setup is hard to document. It’s easy to end up with a large collection of documents and spreadsheets and screencasts to try and explain not only what you did, but why you did it.It’s hard to audit and debug when things go wrong. And things will go wrong. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening with your subscribers, where things went off the rails, and how to get it back on track without screwing things up further.In the end, Drip for me felt like a really shitty programming language. Technically possible to do almost anything, but so painful that in the end you wish you hadn’t bothered.By contrast, ConvertKit is simple. And yes, I think it’s too simple in places. I think there are some genuine gaps in the functionality that makes it a little too hard to get done the things you want.But I’m also aware of the fact that I’m coming from Drip and a really convoluted setup, so being forced to simplify is probably a good thing.And ActiveCampaign is not simple, but it’s powerful in a bunch of ways that Drip should have been. Additionally, it has the distinction of actually being, you know, functional. Crazy, I know.Also, ActiveCampaign apparently is more open to feedback than Drip. I posted a Twitter thread listing some things that I like about it and Jason VandeBoom, the founder of ActiveCampaign, setup a call with me to go over some of my feedback. And ActiveCampaign isn’t a tiny company; they have hundreds of employees and are much larger than Drip. It meant a lot to me that Jason would just jump on the phone with a random customer to see how they could improve.Meanwhile Drip’s emails aren’t even signed by an actual person. During this whole debacle, I don’t think anyone from Drip actually responded to anyone’s tweets or complaints. A couple days after the initial announcement when things were blowing up on Twitter, they sent this out another email that was basically "sorry, not sorry"Just like their price increase, all of their corporate communication just screams “We don’t care about you. Go away.”So I did.I’m actually really glad that I dropped Drip, after all that. Partly because of how much better ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are as tools, but mostly because it taught me a lesson about how you need to be careful when you’re a small company about who you integrate with, because while your interests may align now, that could change at any point.But this rant has gone on long enough, so I’ll save that point for a future post.Disclaimer: just in case Drip decides to sue me (which would be so on-brand for them at this point), ALL the descriptions of Drip’s functionality, failings, and communications is to the best of my recollection and should not be taken as a literal word-for-word account.----Happy to answer any questions about my experience with Drip, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign. Would also love to hear anyone else's experiences with any of those (or others you'd recommend in the space of email-based marketing automation).Original post: https://ryanwaggoner.com/drip-pricing-review/