USA Today writer responds to Y2K Newswire's 39 questions campaign

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Y2K 'jerk' resorts to spam

USA Today writer Sam Vincent Meddis didn't like getting a hundred e-mails from people asking the same 39 questions, and has something to say about it!

-- (dot@dot.dot), December 15, 1999

Answers

That's right. You're all JERKS! Who CARES about Y2K? We're a newspaper!!!!! And Y2K isn't NEWS? GET IT???!!!!

-- sammy baby (us@today.ok), December 15, 1999.

Fair Use/Educational purposes only...

Some jerk put my e-mail address on his fear-mongering Y2K Web site last week.

In the space of a couple of days, I got more than a hundred messages from hysterical-sounding people who seem to believe that the New Year's countdown clock will chime in "The End Of The World As We Know It."

I'm not going to provide the URL for the fear-mongering Web site. Free advertisement is probably what The Jerk is longing for.

(BTW, in my 28 years in journalism, I can't remember ever having referred to someone as a & quot;jerk," at least in print. And having spent much of my career covering criminal justice, I've come across a veritable who's who of creepy folks. Murderers. Spies. Drug dealers. Even an outlaw dictator, ex-Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. All of those marauders, of course, merit their own disparaging epithets. But "jerk" may be the best way to describe Y2Krackpots who spew their disinformation all over cyberspace and terrify the gullible.)

What the paranoiac e-mail messages had in common was a list of 39 preposterous Y2K-related questions, most of them of the "when did you stop beating your wife" variety.

Naturally, they included a hyperlink to The Jerk's Web site.

Typical of messages was the one whose subject line pleaded for & quot;truthful and accurate coverage."

"Your coverage of the Year 2000 problem has been terrible,& quot; it declared. "As a reader of your publication, I am appalled that you have not dedicated more investigative resources to this problem and its potential impacts.& quot;

It purported to be an individual criticism of USA TODAY and/or me personally. But my inspection of the e-mail message showed that the identical item had been bulk e-mailed to other major newspapers and newsmagazines. In my mind, that made it just thinly disguised "spam," the form-letter equivalent of junk mail. 

I even got a message addressed to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a tech reporter with The Washington Post.

The apparent reason for that mix-up: E-mail messages can be sent to multiple parties with only one name listed as the recipient -- a gimmick intended to make spam look personalized. The writer of that message must have cross-linked his spam list somehow.  

I decided to respond to one of the e-mail senders, someone who had sent the same message to no fewer than 20 news organizations, including everyone from the Associated Press to the National Enquirer. The sender was someone identified as BarbMC5.

I couldn't reply to each of the persons who were conned by The Jerk. But if they are really looking for "truthful and accurate coverage," I'd give them the same advice I gave to BarbMC5.

That is, spend some quality time browsing through our Y2K resources index. It includes our latest new reports, an extensive archive of past stories, links to useful Web sites and tips on how to prepare for possible problems.

There are also links to previous pieces I've written about Y2K, commentaries which basically suggest that we all "chill out a little."

That we prepare the same way we would for a winter storm, not for a nuclear winter.

And bear in mind that for most of us, it's far more likely that we'll face a winter storm in the coming year than a significant Y2K computer problem.

Copyright ) 1999, USA TODAY. All rights reserved.



-- (dot@dot.dot), December 15, 1999.

BTW - even if Mike Adams at Y2K Newswire is a jerk, notice how this USA Today guy doesn't even attempt to address the questions? OK, so maybe his readers "spammed" him with "when did you stop beating your wife" questions, but doesn't he have enough respect for them to take it seriously enough to try to answer some of them?

I thought not! He would prefer to complain about the inconvenience.

-- (dot@dot.dot), December 15, 1999.


Whenever people get pissed off about y2k warnings, I can always smell serious FEAR just below the surface. This poor boob Meddis is scared shitless that "the jerk" is right. Otherwise, he would just delete the e-mails -- which takes what, about 5 seconds -- & get on with his life.

Frightened animals behave the same way, all snarls & growls.

-- oh yeah it's (gonna@be.fun), December 15, 1999.


He's a real idiot and a menace to society. My only regret about his imminent awakening to reality is that I won't be able to see his face when he realizes that he was "dead wrong".

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), December 15, 1999.


28 glorious years in journalism and the result is: (1)ad hominem attacks on "jerks" who are concerned about Y2K (2)no data to refute the "jerks" (3)jumping to conclusions with no supporting data: "And bear in mind that for most of us, it's far more likely that we'll face a winter storm in the coming year than a significant Y2K computer problem." Sam Meddis

(No estimate of the probability that we'll face a winter storm and no estimate of the probability we'll have significant Y2K problems -- yet so-called journalist Meddis, with absolutely no data, has come to the conclusion that a winter storm is "far more likely" than significant Y2K problem -- and after reading his ad hominem attacks and a non sequitur conclusion, let's hope Meddis retires from journalism as soon as possible, because his personal opinions on Y2K are not real journalism)

-- Richard Greene (Rgreene2@ford.com), December 15, 1999.


I rather liked BigDog's questions................

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 15, 1999.

Here is an email I sent to Sam. Let's see if I get an answer. According to him fixxing embeds is a snap. FOF is a real solution. It would be nice if Sam could see with his own eyes what it takes to remediate a controller, and how long. Then he should post an article telling the world how easy it's going to be after 01/01/2000.

Please excuse my wording. I was trying to show myself as someone who is ignorant about Y2K. One of the 3 Day Stormers.

By the way, thank you for all the information during the last several months.

Sam,

There is one way you can help eliminate the fears of many. I am not so worried about the mainframe systems or personal computers and databases as I am about the embedded chips. I have heard many different views with regard to these controllers that run almost everything from traffic signals to water treatment plants.

What I hear is that there are so many chips out there that they cannot all be located. I also have heard that when non-compliant chips are discovered they will be fixxed on failure. This is interesting to me because I have also heard that it is a cumbersome process to remediate a controller chip.

Perhaps you could locate a company, let's say a water utility, and spend a few hours with a Y2K engineer who is fixing the embeds and go through the process of remediating a single non-compliant chip. Then you could write an article detailing exactly what it takes to fix the problem. It may calm those of us who are concerned because we don't know who to believe.

Thank you

-- Carl (no3datstorm@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.


28 years of clueless crock, is more like it.

-- A (A@AisA.com), December 15, 1999.

"Terrify the gullible" ??

-- (normally@ease.notnow), December 15, 1999.


If a bunch of folks send the same set of questions to a group of news reporters, it's called spam.

If a bunch of reporters all say "a winter storm" that's not?

Who has been spamming who here?

-- DOC (DOC@DOC...), December 15, 1999.


And here's the email I sent:

Mr. Meddis, I'm just curious, sir. This isn't spam. In fact, I have usatoday.com as my home page. I read it every day. I have a master's degree, and am on my way to a PhD, so I'm not one of the "great unwashed" you may think I am. Why would you write such a piece and actually publish it, when you didn't even make an attempt to read it, let alone make an attempt to address the questions?

You wrote: "What the paranoiac e-mail messages had in common was a list of 39 preposterous Y2K-related questions, most of them of the "when did you stop beating your wife" variety."

Did you REALLY read the questions? It's obvious you either didn't, or you did, and found that the answers (or lack thereof) terrified you. In my opinion, most of the 39 questions were valid, and the concerted effort to dismiss them offhand as spam is typical of liberal media. I suppose you also believe that oral sex isn't sex. Don't worry, be happy, because the government told me to, right?

Regarding the 39 questions, I would hardly call them paranoiac, but then someone who would write such a poor piece of journalistic trash, would be quick to resort to paranoiac name-calling wouldn't they? But then I guess that depends on what your definition of IS is.

If you want to be taken seriously, then act responsibly.

Sincerely, X.X.XXXXXX

-- Powder (Powder@keg.com), December 15, 1999.


Ruskies have the warheads on red alert. His "nuclear winter" joke made me shudder. Clueless. Oblivious.

-- Charli Claypool (claypool@belatlantic.net), December 15, 1999.

Further evidence that you can teach a chimpanzee to type...

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), December 15, 1999.

Note: 28 years as a CRIME reporter. No wonder he is clueless.

-- Martin Thompson (Martin@aol.com), December 15, 1999.


I wonder if he even realizes that if anything in his office screws up - virtually anywhere - he will be unable to do his ssupposed "job" of journalism - what will his answer be, how will he answer if his printer, server, network, satellite, power, water, heat, air conditioning controller, front door access code, network password, ..... give out.

I know what extreme efforts CNN has gone to in downtown Atlanta (supplies for complete independent living (on site) for two weeks!

Perhaps he'd like to go there so he can print a story on Jan 3-4-5-6-7-8...

Maybe though we will save some trees if USA Today cannot print until they fix-all-failures in their supply train.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 15, 1999.


Journalists who don't INVESTIGATE hate the ones that do.

Some, "journalists" investigate by calling the CIO of that nasty company that allegedly dumped raw toxins into the river and ask, "What can you say about that, sir?"

"Naw, we never did it. We're compliant, really. Trust me."

Front Page the next day: "Naw, they never did it. Trust me. Look, I asked them and they told me. That means they didn't do it. You're a jerk if you think they did."

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), December 16, 1999.


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