Journalists Struggling With Y2K Coverage

Just ran across this one. Sorry if its a repeat, but I dont remember seeing it posted. Remember that Ed Yourdon was speaking at this event though.

Diane

Covering a could-be crisis
Tuesday, March 02, 1999

'MADDENING." "Frustrating."

[Search here on Y2K]

http://www.newschoice.com/defaultsearch.asp

Journalists struggled to find words to describe their feelings about covering the great enigma: the year 2000 computer flaw, also known as Y2K. At a seminar Tuesday at the Media Studies Center in midtown Manhattan, about 70 reporters from around the country tried to figure out how to better cover what may turn out to be one of the most significant events in modern history -- or one of the biggest yawns in media history.

Unless reporters get the story straight soon, "we're going to have supply riots in the fall" as confused citizens scramble for food and batteries, one expert thundered. Victor Porlier, author of the book "Y2K: An Action Plan for January 1, 2000," accused the press of providing so little accurate information on the computer bug that most people's behavior will be governed by ignorance and panic later this year.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran a front-page story about a leaked draft copy of a special Senate committee study on Y2K. According to the draft of the report scheduled for release today, the senators also accuse the press of blowing the Y2K story: "Reports in even the most reputable news sources fall prey to polarization -- either overemphasizing the handful of Y2K survivalists or downplaying the event as a hoax."

So why doesn't the mainstream media just provide the simple facts?

The problem is that although all journalists are trained to interview people and examine public documents, we are not taught how to inspect software for, say, a nuclear power plant. How can we possibly tell whether a plant's computers have Y2K bugs? We have to rely on experts for information about potential software foul-ups.

But experts with similar levels of education and experience in computer programming offer wildly differing assessments of Y2K problems. The only point of agreement is on the bug's origin: millions of computers and computer chips embedded in equipment were programmed to read only the last two digits of a year, so that 1999 is understood as "99." When the year turns to 2000, or "00," these computers may misread the date as 1900, causing many of them to malfunction or shut down in confusion.

Whether these malfunctions will have major consequences is a mystery because so many computers are in so many varying stages of being repaired or replaced. Old computers that might have caused catastrophes are being tossed into the trash. Embedded chips are being tested and updated. But at what pace? Are government officials and corporate executives solving the problem, as most insist they are? Or are they lying to avoid panics?

The Senate panel's report itself provides another head-scratching dilemma for journalists. Should headlines trumpet the encouraging news when the report is released? Or should headlines focus on the frightening warnings about electricity blackouts and other problems?

Y2K will be "one of the most serious and potentially devastating events this nation has ever encountered," the leaked draft reads. "In some cases, lives could even be at stake."

Holy shamoley. That sounds terrible.

But the draft report also says banks and other financial-service firms are well-prepared to handle Y2K and predicts that a national power breakdown won't happen. It also claims Social Security checks will not be interrupted and predicts no major disruptions in air-traffic control.

So how should journalists cover this report, as good news or bad?

Despite the popular image of "the media" as being made up of cocky reporters who "just want to sell newspapers," those who were gathered at the Media Studies Center, a research institute, were a quiet bunch, humbled by the difficulty of trying to provide solid information when the fundamental fact about Y2K is that no one really knows the facts.

"You just hope that what you report is right," said Alan Wechsler, a reporter for the Times Union in Albany, N.Y.

Marilyn Geewax writes for the Atlanta Constitution. Her e-mail address is mgeewax@ajc.com.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 07, 1999

Answers

Yes, I was at the conference -- along with Rick Cowles, Dennis Grabow, Victor Porlier, Bob Alloway, and others. Edward Yardeni was supposed to be there, too, but had to drop out at the last moment.

There have been several other discussions about why the media has not done a consistent job of reporting on Y2K, and I won't re-hash all of it. I was able to confirm, though, that one of the problems is that most journalists know nothing about software; I did an informal survey of the group and found that less than 10% had ever written a computer program, and virtually nobody had worked on a large project over a period of time, as part of a large team.

In my presentation, I showed them a typical happy-face "we're making good progress" Y2K status report, and then parsed it to show them what kind of questions they should be asking. It's a series of several slides in the latest oversion of the Powerpoint file available on my web site. It appeared that the group was taking lots of notes; apparently many of these questions had not occurred to them before.

But the most interesting part of the day was Dr. Robert Alloway's presentation. Alloway is a retired MIT professor who created the "report card" for Congressman Horn's committee. He showed chart after chart of publicly-available figures (i.e., from the last several Horn reports) in which it was stunningly obvious that the main reason several Congressional agencies have been able to show "progress" is that they have steadily reduced the number of systems categorized as "mission-critical." If I remember correctly, the Department of Agriculture identified approx 1,200 mission-critical systems in the spring of 1997; 18 months later, they had reduced that number to approx 300.

One of the media people in the audience interrupted at this point and asked (this is not quite verbatim, but pretty darn close), "Why weren't we told about this?" Sitting in the back of the room, I almost fell off my chair in amazement: these are reporters, for crying out loud! Dr. Alloway politely responded to the question by reminding them that all of this information was publicly available.

I had hoped to find some aggressive reporters of the Woodward/Bernstein ilk in the meeting. Maybe they were lurking somewhere, but I didn't see them. I think they're all professional, and I think they're trying to do a good job. But, like all of us, they're far too busy, far too overwhelmed with pseudo-information, and often thrown into a job (like Y2K) for which they have no training or background. Whatever the explanation, I don't think most of them know what questions to ask, or which people to talk to, or what answers to believe. The only example of good investigative reporting that I can recall seeing in the last year or so was the Vanity Fair article.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), March 07, 1999.

I remember back in the early 90's at the height of the gulf war every network had their military experts commenting on the happenings.

Wonder how long before we see this kind of coverage and what kind of experts they will have?

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), March 07, 1999.

Ed, thank you, that was very educational! Your writing is so clear, down-to-earth, and informative. Too bad *you* couldn't be an investigative journalist, along with all the rest of your hats. Looks like the talent distribution took a major download on you and passed most others by!

Along with stupidity, greed, procrastination, and short-sightedness, add laziness to the Why Y2K mix. Still leaving out opportunism and sheer evil until more evidence yes/no comes in.

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), March 07, 1999.

Ed Yourdon commented:

"But the most interesting part of the day was Dr. Robert Alloway's presentation. Alloway is a retired MIT professor who created the "report card" for Congressman Horn's committee. He showed chart after chart of publicly-available figures (i.e., from the last several Horn reports) in which it was stunningly obvious that the main reason several Congressional agencies have been able to show "progress" is that they have steadily reduced the number of systems categorized as "mission-critical." If I remember correctly, the Department of Agriculture identified approx 1,200 mission-critical systems in the spring of 1997; 18 months later, they had reduced that number to approx 300."

Ed, here is a table I posted yesterday showing the OMB status report of remediated .gov systems.

Date ...........Mission Critical ........Remediated
...................Systems ..................Systems ............% Complete
================================================

May 97 .....7649 ........................1598 ..................21
Aug 97 .....8562 ........................1646 ..................19
Nov 97 .....8589 ........................2296...................27
Feb 98 .....7850 .........................2913 ..................40
Aug 98 .....7343 ........................3692................... 50
Nov 98 .....6696 ........................4049 ...................61
Feb 99 .....6404 .........................5059 ..................79

Source: Office Of Management and Budget

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), March 07, 1999.

Another thing I've noticed, in long study of worthy personages, is that the truly great retain their sense of place and an astonishment factor. They are keenly observant and ever-learning, soaking up new knowledge/insight as it comes, however strange and out-of-box, and share this with others without undue fear of reaction, knowing that time will bear them accurate.

When one becomes too swelled-self-important and closes off that openness, or becomes jaded and too cynical, the lines to ever-expanding understanding constrict and that individual shrinks into a slowly self-ossifying prison.

Ed has wisely avoided this common fate of experts and, in my mind, has achieved a well-earned and deserved stature of greatness very rarely encountered. I feel very fortunate to have found this Forum and the information contained herein.

Thank you, Ed Yourdon.

xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), March 07, 1999.

Thanks Ed for your response.

I'll try to remember, whenever I get so darned frustrated with the newsmedia, that they're mostly writing in the dark.

Sort of like the way we're Y2K searching the fog.

Gott'a be more consistent about e-mailing the local "investigative" reporters who are trying, just not doing all that well.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 07, 1999.

Leadership, or the lack of it, I think plays a part here too. So often there are contradictions, even from the same source. The journalists are affected by this schizophrenia like the rest of us. Couple this with the sheer scope and multifaceted nature of Y2K, and you have even more fog. This may continue, unfortunately, until such time that leaders decide to lead, with one voice and one message, so that followers can follow. Will this ever happen? Who knows, but I think leaders may be forced to do this, at least to some extent, or the risks of followers seeking their own leaders, with differing messsages, will continue.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), March 07, 1999.

But it begs the question as to why they don't just pick a single facet and investigate it to death! Because I like aviation, I 'fixated' a bit on the saga of the FAA and Air Traffic Control. The FACTS are simply not in dispute regarding the failure of the FAA to replace IBM mainframes a year ago. Now, they are out of time. Its a reasonably simple story. All you have to do is get the FAA press releases for the last 18 months regarding Y2K and highlight what they have done and said. Then add a commentary from a few aviation and computer types. THIS SHOULD HAVE MADE THE HEADLINES!!! (SOrry, had to vent a little......)

When the Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran a long story on the airline industry and Y2K it was your basic happyface, maybe a VCR or escalator won't work, effort. I contacted the editor of the story and the author of the byline. NEITHER knew ANYTHING about the ATC problems. I was nice and rational etc. They asked me to e-mail the references- which I did. Will it help? I don't know. But I have a much lower opinion of the 5th estate.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), March 07, 1999.

I've been working this aspect of the issue for almost a year now.... and have noticed some common traits that may help explain the "reporter dilemma" ("RD") so often noticed. RD manifests itself in a variety of forms .. most pervasively in very erratic coverage .. if at all. To maintain some semblance of neutrality, not unlike what is required during political coverage, reporters often present both sides of the issue. This leaves most [unknowledgeable] readers with a very confused feeling .. which in turn freezes them into inaction. Furthermore, and perhaps due to human nature, most people seem to prefer to follow the "optimistic" aspects of life. Given both positive and negative perspectives in a story, readers tend to give preference to the "positive" and "happy face" aspects... at the expense of overlooking the negative.

While there ARE some silver linings to Y2K, the fundamental premise of Y2K is understandably negative. This polarizes people. They don't like focusing on negative issues. Reporters don't either. Regrettably, reporting often panders to the majority. It's a numbers game. This means ratings. If a reporter writes a story that favors the minority of readers, they lose ratings points, which in turn isn't conducive to job security.

There are also other operative issues involved in reporting. Consider what reporters "report". Since the dawn of time, the primary focus of profession of reporting has been focused on two things: 1) They are accustomed to reporting the "here and now" .. events of very recent nature .. and 2) They report "history" .. very recent happenings. Year-2000 is neither of these -- yet. Coupled with the intense lack of understanding of the technological aspects of Y2K, other the final nail on the reporting coffin has its roots in some very simple limits... time; lack of investigative reporting skills; and the fact that we don't allow people to be wrong any more. Too many mistakes and one loses a job. Y2K is the proverbial hot-potato.

Y2K is too large in scope. Reporters in my area would rather report on a local auto accident than something so overwhelming as a global computer-based debacle. People have the attitude that the've survived all manner of hardship in the past and will survive Y2K too. While there is truth in this .. Y2K is unique .. yet many reporters and readers alike fail to grasp this.

And finally .. right or wrong .. existing bias restricts a reporter's motivation to dig into the facts. Countless times I've presented information to reporters only to be told that they believe Y2K is a hoax, a "non-issue", or similar description, and they completely blew off even credible sources even when left for their review.

Improper reporting of Y2K is an issue that's difficult to quantify. It's complex. It's devisive. It's incredibly time-consuming. And .. it's in the future. For a profession that's used to "history" as well as the "here-and-now" .. which are all elements that reporters avoid like the plague.

Dan

-- Dan (DanTCC@Yahoo.com), March 07, 1999.

As a followup question for RD:

What adverse effects on aviation will the noncompliance of those 3083 mainframes actually have? This seems to be an important question as it looks more and more likely that we'll have to live (or maybe die) with those noncompliances.

So if (as appears likely) the FAA never does implement a fix, what will go wrong? Will it prevent flights altogether, or require some trivial workaround? Will the probability of mid-air collisions increase? Will proper tracking be degraded? Will planes vanish from the system? Can the answers to these questions be pried out of the FAA by reporters? Without any answers, what kind of story can you write, other than FAA has problems, says they're on track to fix them, has a poor track record for keeping their word, and this will impact domestic air travel in some unknowable way unless it doesnt?

Not a very satisfying news story either to write or to read.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 07, 1999.

Struggling journalists? Of course. With an instrument of logic, spin will not become fact, regardless of how politically correct or popular the spin might be. Journalists have been spun so long that they not only expect it, they need it and they want it. This causes tension in the journalists' minds, because their minds do still contain vestiges of actual thought processes, left over from Algebra II in high school.

Journalism is a lot of work. It's a lot easier to just report what someone tells you to report. Thus the success of spin.

A subplot? No reporter wants to admit that some whacko militia supremacist nut holed up in the Ozarks for the last twenty years is actually right about anything, even if its just a result of stopped clock syndrome.

It's going to be very difficult to get a top-drawer reporter to do actual work that may end up validating a survivalist strategy.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 07, 1999.

Journalism *IS* spin, codified into a "profession". Many (most?) people with intelligence and integrity either avoid journalism or leave it after a brief stint. Most people here (not just Ed) are not journalists simply because they have found better things to do with their lives than (in effect) be told what to write and how to write it, and live a lie that they have some degree of autonomy in how the process of journalism works. These folks don't understand technology or how to deal with it because it is not a requirement for the job. Neither is investigative research. More important is the ability to take dictation. Ultimate responsibility lies with the editors and owners of the journalism publications, who preside over and perpetuate this system. The Usenet discussion group alt.journalism sank like a stone when stories not covered by the mainstream media seeped into it, and the journalists there went nonlinear with rage over the "takeouver " of "their" newsgroup (they went into hiding using an email discussion list instead of staying public). Phenomena like Y2K and the Internet are monkey wrenches in the established order. The issues involved transcend Y2K itself and extend to the multinational pecking order and deep politics. It is a time for heightened vigilance.

Mainstream advocacy of survivalism just won't happen, in my opinion. It seems much more likely to me that anyone who is observed to be "hoarding" or even "inciting panic" will be smeared as a racist, anti-government zealot, or both, as soon as TSHTF, ie, when convenient scapegoats become needed. I'm sorry to be such a pessimist, but I've been able to predict media reaction accurately too many times in the past with my own theories to change spots now.

-- Ann Y Body (annybody@nowhere.disorg), March 07, 1999.

Perhaps we will need clip-on Y2K seat cushions for folks attending some Y2K conferences. :-) Ed Yourdon almost fell off his chair at this one, and if I remember correctly, Ed Yardini almost fell off his chair when the CEO of SUN (Scott McNeally??) made his - buy parts from Asia before it's too late - comment (not a direct quote) at another Y2K conference.

Ed, don't break anything; we don't want to lose you!

Flint,

"What adverse effects on aviation will the noncompliance of those 3083 mainframes actually have?"

You may be interested in the item at:

http://home.natca.org/natca/mediaandpublicrelations/2000.html

Aside from any potential Y2K problems with those 3083s, they are running out of spare parts.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), March 07, 1999.

Legendary quote from Leslie Stahl: "We are only as good as our sources."

Developing good sources comes from running a "beat." How many "Y2k beat" reporters are there, and on whom are they relying for their information? I could blather on. . .but I won't waste your time.

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), March 07, 1999.

I think by now most people should have a pretty good idea of just how powerful but insane the media is, as demonstrated by the Monica story. What a tremendous waste of time and money. Now imagine what they will do when something REAL happens. The smallest bank run or failure, and they will fan the flames, turning it into a nightmare. In fact, from my point of view, that is the major reason why I beleive Y2K will be very disastrous for many people who allow their actions to be dictated by the media. If the media were not involved, the effects of Y2K would be much more easily controlled, and we could make the transition relatively painless. But they love to pour gasoline onto a fire.

-- @ (@@@.@), March 07, 1999.

Jerry:

What I got from that site was that compliance problems had been found which *might* interfere with maintenance scheduling. This was followed by a discussion of what might happen if systems break for lack of maintenance. But this is kind of like talking about all the horrible things that might happen if you have a blowout because you let your tires go bald.

I didn't see any direct link between noncompliance and failure beyond the possibility of maintenance scheduling being untrustworthy.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 07, 1999.

Flint:

The IBM 3083's are non-compliant at the microcode (firmware)level! IBM has flatly stated that they can't fix them. The original electrical engineers are gone. I have heard rumors that some of the original source code for the microcode is (you guessed it) missing. The FAA hired some ex-IBM freelancers who tried to fix things but they failed. Therefore, in November the FAA threw up its hands and said they were going to convert to G3 mainframes (a 10 year old design no longer in production) versus the newer G5 mainframes. (Choosing the G3 over the G5 is itself a curious decision. They'll have to buy/lease 2nd hand machines.) Now remember, this is entirely separate from operating system upgrades or application remediation. The 20 regional ATC centers are not identical. Over the years, each site has been somewhat customized in terms of application software. These are real-time applications so input interfaces have certain timing requirements. I think the operating system itself has to be tweaked to accomodate the ancient peripherals. Input is from radar (various types) and electronic info broadcast from the aircraft. The output is to (usually) ancient custom CRT's. The bottom line is this. If Y2K were today, the Air Traffic Control system would be unusable, a shambles, total toast. ATC is what parks each plane in a given sky-highway at a given interval. Its what keeps the planes in precise order as they descend to a busy airport. Without the ATC functional, you don't have modern aviation -period-end of sentence. I have worked on 3083's. They are cranky beasts about as powerful as a small 1999 file server. I have watched the FAA for a year and suspect that Moe, Larry and Shemp are in charge.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), March 07, 1999.

RD:

I'm not questioning your conclusions at all. I assume you know what you're talking about. I was just curious about the failure mode itself. When these 3083's were tested, exactly what did they do wrong? I'm just asking because I debug hardware and firmware for a living, and descriptions like "it just doesn't work right anymore" always frustrate me. I always have to ask: Exactly what is it doing wrong?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 07, 1999.

Flint:

Thats a good question. Neither IBM or the FAA ever disclosed exactly what happened during testing by IBM. I have tried to get the details but have been unable to get them. For what its worth, one anonymous source told me that the firmware querys the system date/time in multiple ways for timing purposes and can't handle century 20. I have no background in firmware to speculate further. I haven't looked in the last few months, but I'll try seeing if any of the IBM geek boards have any info.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), March 07, 1999.

Good story - good comments. I have seen almost nothing from the Atlanta Journal Const. about y2K - in terms of the potential devestation in Atlanta itself, couples with the Jan 2000 superbowl and other events such as football bowls in town etc closer to New Years Eve.. The budget, the results, and the shcedule for Atlanta and Fulton County have been suspicious by their absence - though appear to be half that (per person) of Cobb County - which has a much smaller probelm becuase it is much less densely populated - with no downtown areas and a wide area of small towns taht can funstion on their own.

If Marilyn Geewax wrote this, we may begin seeing some truthful reporting. If not - and if she meant what she wrote then, then it got squashed by the liberal editorial board of the AJC and the democratic city government.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 07, 1999.

Upon re-reading this, I have hesitancies about posting it, because parts of it- about my own background- might come across the wrong way, but I really didn't mean them to. Don't say you weren't warned... -----------------

One of the most telling points in this thread was the quote from Ed Y. from a reporter saying "Why didn't anybody *tell* us this?" Anyone here remember how Iran-Contra "broke"- ? As I recall, it was when Ronald Reagan just walked into the White House Press Room and simply *told* the media about it. Up until that point, they, like everyone else, had no idea what was going on.

I don't have it handy, but as I recall, in Sam Donaldson's book,"Hold On, Mr. President!" he said that White House reporters had simply gotten too lazy. They were accustomed to being spoon-fed. That's why Iran-Contra happened right under their noses. He said they would have to become aggressive again. Oops.

Ditto, folks, Watergate. For quite some time, the Post was out there on its own, and that with Woodward & Bernstein by themselves. This is simply part of the media culture (as witness the Leslie Stahl quote)- not pursuing something so radically unusual, out of the ordinary. Even today, the supposedly "big" stories often if not usually begin with leaks, not real homework.

The real homework, for instance, as witnessed in the example of the consistent lowering of "mission-critical" numbers by the feds in order to "make" the deadline. Now, this is common knowledge among Y2K cognescenti. I've mentioned it on our Website before (and, in fact, have been working on short essay describing the implications of it, because it has a very significant meaning no one has yet pointed out). I also intend to talk about this on the air (probably on Monday, March 22, but I haven't firmed up the date yet). Since Alloway made that point, you can bet media organizations will follow- however, even so, they still will not fully understand its implications.

Also, the brutal fact is, Y2K is literally a full-time job. We did our first Y2K story long before anyone else (December of 1996). But even though I was fairly familiar with it by early 98 when I started researching it in-depth, I still felt it like it took me two solid weeks of nothing but Y2K before I felt like I understood its basic implications, and four more weeks of that type of intense effort before I thought I had something of a more thorough understanding of the overall situation.

Now, every news organization has its own quirks and unique aspects to its structure. CBN had someone (ie, me) who could be freed up for a few years (yes, I said years) from his primary responsibilities in order to focus on one story- this despite the fact that I am not actually a "reporter;" I am an Editor (ie, I oversee/survey/analyze our coverage of certain stories). Some of my areas of responsibility in this regard included Finance/Economics & Technology. For instance, I demonstrated the Internet on the show in 1995 (using, incidentally, Yahoo, which at the time was literally just a few months old). I told our audience pretty clearly just what the implications of this thing (the Web) were. In other words, I happened to have the necessary background to at least be able to get some handle on Y2K, and at the same time had the freedom to focus on it full-time.

This, to put it mildly, is rare in the extreme. With most journalists, Y2K is simply another story (at least at first). They have to, relatively speaking, rush through it. They don't have the background, or the luxury of time that I or a few others do. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only broadcast journalist in the country dedicated to Y2K, certainly the only nationally broadcast one. But to a large extent, that's a combination of the function of our setup and my background. I've often said that if I didn't have a background in technology, financial markets, economics, history (much more important than you realize) & global affairs, I wouldn't really be able to understand the big picture on this (to the extent anyone can, really).

I have to admit, I really go back & forth on this. I wonder why other reporters aren't spending serious time on this, and yet, I realize I have put in a minimum of 70 hours a week, every week, for nearly a year (sometimes over 100 hours a week). Whatever life I had before has vanished in the last year, I can tell you that.

I hope I don't sound like I'm tooting my own horn; I'm not. I'm simply saying it took a very unusual combination of circumstances (my background of a few decades & freedom to focus on Y2K) to get me to this point; very, very few people in the media have those advantages, so to speak. So that's how I can understand some of the breathtaking shallowness that's out there. Reporters face serious handicaps. Such as:

*The "experts" disagree on Y2K's outcome. Reporters are trained to find & quote experts. If the experts can't agree- and they're spending full-time on the subject- how can a reporter get a clue? Why is Yourdon right and the next person wrong? Why pay attention to Yardeni when most other economists say "no problem?" And what about what the government says? And what about- etc.

*The problem itself is exceptionally difficult to understand, not only in the technological but also the global sense. And you as a reporter cannot explain to your audience what you yourself do not really understand. That makes it very hard to write about. Y2K is especially not a TV-friendly issue. It's tough enough to explain it properly in print; on TV? Get a grip. Trust me, as someone who has spoken publicly on this issue, I've seen eyes glaze over as I attempt to bring people to the point of understanding this sufficiently so that they realize why it really is a problem. (After a while, I got it down to the point where the light bulbs went off fairly quickly, but if you don't have enough time to do it properly, they never really do go beyond the basics of basics). Without sufficient time, I am not about to get into the various specifics with audiences, beyond fun stuff like writing words like "fliss" in COBOL date fields. (Just as an aside, though, I can usually pick programmers out of audience, because they're always the ones sitting there nodding their heads in agreement.) Even so, without that depth of understanding, people don't really understand the potential threat Y2K poses.

*Then there is the "nut" factor. "Oh, a doom & gloomer, huh?" End of story for a lot of reporters and (worse) editors. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. The story is quickly stereotyped and dismissed.

Permit me to digress here. The "nut" factor goes well beyond saying Y2K could be serious. It also includes just who's reporting that it could be serious. If it's NBC, that's fine. Reverse the initials, and it becomes CBN, and some reporters eyes will roll (although, incidentally, I will note in passing that some in the news media have gotten their Y2K education from our Website- and probably others, I'm sure- I happen to know this for a fact, although they don't know I know). That raises a corollary point: that, although "The Internet" is often dissed in the major media as a source of info, we all know that it is really the best place by far to get good Y2K info (witness the Alloway point mentioned above: widely known on the Net, virtually unknown in the news media).

Another example: last year, our White House correspondent walked into the Press Room & asked, "So, what do you all think of the Drudge Report story about Clinton having an affair with an intern?" She was told she was crazy, it was the Internet, it was Drudge, it was etc etc. That was in the morning. By that very afternoon, they were apologizing to her, since the story's reality had become evident by then. They had at first dismissed the story because it came from Drudge, and, well, you know... the "Internet" and all that (those of you who pay attention to Drudge know the type of obnoxiously self- righteous reception he got at the National Press Club last year).

Now, frankly, I can understand this. It's human nature to tend to trust who and what we know and understand. For instance, CBN was founded & is run by someone (Pat Robertson) who has political & religious views that many in the establishment media (and elsewhere) do not share or understand (although I may be too hard on us here, since we have excellent working relationships throughout the major media). However, given that the establishment media (and here I'm speaking of the mass media, excluding speciality publications, even bigger ones like Business Week)- is not full of technological experts, the lack of willingness to trust anyone outside certain circles becomes another roadblock to overcome.

The "nut" factor goes beyond all of this. In addition, no one wants to predict anything too bad, because it becomes too easily skewed as some flavor of The End Of The World. Now, that's been predicted too many times (in a secular, not religious, sense), and of course it hasn't happened (for instance, a member of the British government said in 1914 as WW I began: "The lights are going out all over Europe, and I fear we shall not see them again in our lifetime.")

But there's more to it than that. The establishment in general rarely goes into the realm of predictions which vary much from Tomorrow Will Be Like Today Only More So. I am quite serious about this. After the Reagan's 1984 crushing re-election, Hugh Sidey of Time wrote a superb column about how a man so despised by so much of the intelligentsia could be so loved by the American people. He extolled about how Eric Blair (that's George Orwell to most of you :) wrote in the mid-1940s that the British intelligentsia had predicted, in succession, that Hitler would never move against Poland, that he would never move against the USSR, that he would never attack Britain, that the Battle of Britain was lost, and so on (or similar predictions). Whereupon either Blair himself, or in a quote of someone, said "One would have to be a member of the intelligentsia to believe such things. No ordinary man could be such a fool."

Folks, the establishment, as a whole, plays it safe. That's because that's where the percentages are, over time. However, by doing such things, one misses the big turning points. It also makes one intellectually lazy, and prone not to do real, hard work. That's why Wall Street misses the big moves all the time, why Washington does the same (in a political sense), why academics don't see major social trends coming, and so on. It's actually not hard to see these things in advance, *IF* one is willing to do the really hard work and put in the long, hard hours (and if you are willing to do something else, which is to accept the implications of the evidence before your eyes).

And that last point leads me into something else: facts are hard to come by in Y2K. Very hard. Reporters, in addition to quoting experts, also should look for facts. But here's an extraordinarily challenging subject where one cannot really know what the truth is, and what truth does seem to exist changes almost daily (for instance, the rural co-ops immediately complaining that the Senate report understates their readiness). That makes an already exceptionally difficult job even more difficult.

I could write a whale of a lot more on this, but you get the idea, I hope...

Re: the FAA/IBM issue: according to Time Digital, 2/2/99: "In October of 1997, IBM stated bluntly that 'the appropriate skills and tools do not exist to conduct a complete Year 2000 test assessment of the IBM model 3083.'"

-- Drew Parkhill/CBN News (y2k@cbn.org), March 07, 1999.

Drew,

I'm glad you did not let that hesitancy stop you. It appears to me to be well worth reading. Thanks!

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), March 08, 1999.

Drew,

You are one of the number of reasons I take the time to read and read at this site. Thank you for taking the thought and time to write such a thoughtful explanation on this troublesome subject. What you say here rings true.

Over the many months I've been following the subject ( and experienced the frustration re inadequate coverage) I've often stopped to tell myself that - Hey - reporters are, first, humans. And the FIRST phenomenon that we've seen re y2k is the inability of many humans to understand it - to grasp the full implications. It's the same with many leaders - in business and in government. How can you report on something you don't see? Your discription of the time you've taken to see is one of the most telling aspects of your post.

-- cat (ccordes@scruznet.com), March 08, 1999.

Drew, thanks for that thoughtful post.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 08, 1999.

Exceptional comments Drew - can you get those "verbatim" into a short segment on CBN? beshides, the "script" is already written - figure two minutes, three minutes of commentary time like this would be very instructive.

I think it would help your listeners understand better what goes into the information you discuss. And why they are receiving "differernt information" elsewhere - otherwise, they will distort, or deny, what is released on CBN vs NBC.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 08, 1999.

Drew,

... The real homework, for instance, as witnessed in the example of the consistent lowering of "mission-critical" numbers by the feds in order to "make" the deadline. Now, this is common knowledge among Y2K cognescenti. I've mentioned it on our Website before (and, in fact, have been working on short essay describing the implications of it, because it has a very significant meaning no one has yet pointed out) ...

Clues? Dont leave us hanging!

Lets see WHAT would that mean?

Well, Number One: They still will NOT say exactly how many non- mission critical systems there are (At least that I could find) so its difficult to understand the scope of the problem. Ive heard numbers vary from 50,000 to 70,000. Thats a wide differential.

Two: As they got over assessment, determined what was mission- critical, started working on it, they discovered some of it couldnt BE fixed. Hence the numbers reduced.

Three: Youd have to check procurement to see what kind of replacement equipment each agency purchased. Never see what percentage of mission critical systems HAD to be replaced, do you.

Four: Remediation & Testing phase. Maybe they discover more that more wont make it so the numbers go down again.

Five: Its all harder than they thought, and more time consuming, hence the revisions in mission-critical as more drop into non- compliant never-never land.

Six: Notice they dont talk about what services they will still be able to do/provide versus those capabilities that can no longer be supported. What will work, what will not, I wonder? How does that factor into people and staffing? Will there be government layoffs? Are there mission-critical staff to support the mission-critical computer applications? What about all the non-mission critical staff and their ability to function, or not? Curious about those implications.

What else, Drew?

As to your other comments ... the brutal fact is, Y2K is literally a full-time job.

Yes indeedy! Ill bet few editors have assigned staff the full-time learning curve required to understand just the Y2K basics. Then theres staying on top of the info. Groan.

Whatever life I had before has vanished in the last year, I can tell you that. As a mere observer, Ill second that one!

Thanks for all your excellent comments, Drew! It helps.

We, here, understand why Y2K is one of the big turning points in human history. Because we see bigger pictures. Now, thanks to you, we can also see better WHY our media often doesnt GI. We need to be more compassionate with the local reporters who are still taking Y2K baby steps, and do a bit more hand-holding.

Diane

(P.S. I second what Robert says. Why not some pieces, and coverage, explaining why journalists have such a difficult time with Y2K. Within the teachings you may help others GI too).

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 08, 1999.

Thanks, everyone, for the nice words. Eye m krushed 4 tyme, so, qwick ree-sponses :)

Robert: there's more than 2-3 minutes of material there, although maybe I could condense it down at some future point.

Diane: maybe I shouldn't say that what I'm thinking about is "very significant." It's just a point (or two) related to the statistics of federal preparedness, but I don't want to say anything about it until I have more time to do some more work on it. Incidentally, that appearance is now set for next Monday, March 15.

Must run- have loooooooots of catching up to do...

-- Drew Parkhill/CBN News (y2k@cbn.org), March 08, 1999.

Anybody's post is very sharp - pretty much sums up my low opinion of the journalism profession these days. And then along comes Drew, being the exceptional exception to the rule.

This quote from Paula Gordon is telling...

"There are many explanations for such differences in perspectives. One explanation is that relatively few people have well developed synthetic reasoning skills or systems analysis skills. These are exactly the skills that are needed in order to make assessments. Copious amounts of logic and commonsense are similarly needed in order to comprehend the nature and scope of the impacts associated with all aspects of the Y2K problem. All of these skills and capacities are needed in understanding the connectivity and interdependency aspects of Y2K. Persons who quickly "recognize connections" may be among the first to comprehend the potential severity of the impacts. "

These skills are mostly lacking in journalists. As is curiousity, sadly enough.

-- humpty (no.6@thevillage.com), March 08, 1999.