UN to media: Be accurate, don't scare folks! Oh, and get lost!

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UN tackles millennium bug

[snip]

The conference organisers say it is important the media portrays an accurate picture of the problem so scare stories do not take hold.

However, they are conducting some of their own proceedings behind closed doors in order to ensure participants are totally frank with each other about their country's true state of readiness for the millennium.

The battle lines have been drawn. The attempted global media blackout will backfire.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), June 22, 1999

Answers

The 'closed door meetings' are probally to figure out how to control the starving masses of people who will be filling the streets.

-- steve (steve@nwmo.com), June 22, 1999.

There you have it... An accurate picture that can only be discussed with total frankness behind closed doors.

What more can you say...

-- too true (to@be.good), June 22, 1999.


TOO TRUE:

Unfortunately, I find myself in agreement with your statement...

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), June 22, 1999.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_374000/374872.stm

[snip]

Tuesday, June 22, 1999 Published at 01:21 GMT 02:21 UK

Sci/Tech

UN tackles millennium bug

By UN Correspondent Mark Devenport

Representatives of more than 170 countries are meeting to share information about their preparedness for dealing with the so-called Y2K bug, which threatens computer operations at the turn of the millennium.

At a preliminary news conference at UN headquarters in New York, coordinators from around the world expressed broad confidence in their regions' preparations, but they also voiced concern about the potential for panic among an ill-informed general public.

Mexico's coordinator, Carlos Jarque, said the popular perception of the problem was as important as the problem itself:

"Will the banks work? Yes, provided not everyone goes and withdraws their deposits, " he said.

"Will telephone systems work? Yes, provided not everyone picks up the phone and sees if they have a dialling tone."

Trade fears

The millennium bug is caused by the abbreviated dates that have been used in computer programmes - for instance, identifying a year as "60" rather than "1960".

The bug could convince some computers that the year 2000 is in fact 1900, leading them to process data inaccurately, with inevitable knock-on effects on sectors like telecommunications, trade or transport.

A representative from the Philippines expressed concern about groups he said were offering to take care of people's money if they didn't feel it was safe in the bank over the millennium.

A representative from Venezuela said his country could guarantee its oil exports, but admitted doubts about the effects of the bug on the satellite technology that Venezuelan companies relied on for trade information.

Prepare yourself

The United States coordinator said that in general the developed world was better prepared than the developing world, but he warned consumers all over the world to find out about the bug, so they are ready for whatever the turn of the year brings.

The conference organisers say it is important the media portrays an accurate picture of the problem so scare stories do not take hold.

However, they are conducting some of their own proceedings behind closed doors in order to ensure participants are totally frank with each other about their country's true state of readiness for the millennium.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 22, 1999.


The UN is pitiful.

The following snippet is pitiful:

"The United States coordinator said that in general the developed world was better prepared than the developing world, but he warned consumers all over the world to find out about the bug, so they are ready for whatever the turn of the year brings."

Enough said.

-- Rick (rick7@postmark.net), June 22, 1999.



http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/20337.html

[snip]

UN Discusses Y2K Preparations

Reuters

3:00 a.m. 22.Jun.99.PDT

The biggest Y2K problem facing nations is not fixing computer bugs but preparing populations for possible disruptions without causing panic, delegates to a global Y2K summit said Monday.

[snip]

But speakers feared public panic if they said too much about the little-understood Y2K bug or suggested year 2000 contingency planning. And they said they had to explain the problem before expected Y2K-apocalypse movies and media reports defined the issue and "bugged out" their populations.

"The perception of the problem is as important as the solution itself," Susan Page, who manages the Australian government's year 2000 effort, said at the summit, which was also sponsored by the Freedom Forum, a US media think tank.

[snip]

To get a clearer picture, nations and regions need to make public more Y2K information, White House Y2K czar John Koskinen told reporters at the conclusion of the first meeting of the two-day International Y2K Cooperation Center summit.

"International information is the most difficult thing to come by," Koskinen said. "If there's an absence of information, people assume the worst."

Speakers said they did not know what to tell people who have no phone, let alone a personal computer, about a technological glitch that might seriously affect them or not touch them at all.

"What should citizens know?" asked Mexican Y2K chief Carlos Jarque. "If you overdo it then you create anxiety."

Jarque, a Mexican cabinet minister, said that while his nation of 100 million had the problem well under control, less than five percent of Mexicans could identify what the Y2K problem was.

The general manager of Venezuela's government information network, Hugo Castellanos, said his country has employed psychologists and psychiatrists to help the oil-dependent Latin American state explain the glitch to citizens caught in recession.

Venezuelans are already jumpy about their financial situation, and any official suggestion of withdrawals would have people running for the banks, Castellanos said.

"We are talking to psychologists and psychiatrists about how to reach the people in the right way," Castellanos said. "If we say you have to have food and cash at home, we're sure that banks would go bankrupt and food could disappear."

Responding to questions about whether the real Y2K problem was now outside the United States, Koskinen said, "It wouldn't surprise us to see more problems in developed countries because we have more systems to fix."

[snip]

Copyright) 1999 Reuters Limited.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 23, 1999.


The Freedom Forum has been in the news before. See the thread:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000ajF

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 23, 1999.


Regular - Thank you for pointing that last paragraph out. I first clicked on that story from GN's site, gave it a glance, and didn't read the whole article.

Somewhat similar to "hide the kicker on page 20" isn't it?

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), June 23, 1999.


Another article on this same topic (especially in the second half)...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_franke/19990624_xcdfr_could_capi. shtml

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 24, 1999.


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