Hyatt Is Grossly Misquoted by Baptist Press

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Baptist Press recently ran an article entitled, 

In the article they quoted me extensively. It is a good example of why I hate to do interviews with the print media. I don't know why, but more than any other media, they just can't seem to get the story straight. I want to address two misquotes:

"I consider myself a Y2K agnostic," Hyatt said. "All the data we have on Y2K is self-reported. Very little is certified. We really don't know if the original problem would have created any crisis. But still, it is best to err on the side of being prepared."

He got this half right. I did refer to myself as a "Y2K agnostic." I was trying to make the point that we don't know what is going to happen based on the data at our disposal. However, I did not say, "We really don't know if the original problem would have created any crisis." Good grief! Based on the failures we have already seen, that's the one thing we know for sure.

 If the code isn't fixed, the computers will crash or malfunction. Period. If we had not addressed this problem, we could be facing a certain collapse of the infrastructure and TEOTWAWKI. Fortunately, a good deal of work has been done in the last two years. Have we fixed enough to avoid the meltdown scenario, I described in The Millennium Bug? I don't know -- hence, my "agnosticism." I certainly hope so, but I haven't seen any hard evidence to justify that conclusion.

Hyatt said individuals should have a three-day survival kit on hand to ride out any disruptions in power or food supply. Each kit should include three days of non-tap water, canned food, batteries, flashlights, battery-operated radios and so forth. A gallon of bottled water should be purchased and set aside for each member of the family for three days or more.

This isn't even a misquote; it's a total fabrication! If this were my conclusion about preparing for Y2K, I wish I had come to it before I:

I am calling Baptist Press this morning and ask them to print a retraction. It's this kind of out-and-out disinformation that puts people to sleep and lulls them back into complacency.

Moral of the story: don't believe everything you read, especially when it total contradicts everything else an individual has said or written.



-- Michael S. Hyatt (mhyatt@michaelhyatt.com), December 17, 1999

Answers

Oops. I forgot the link to the original article: Clinton Readies 50 State Emergency Declarations.

-- Michael S. Hyatt (mhyatt@michaelhyatt.com), December 17, 1999.

Michael,

With all due respect, what will the computers do? Will they crash or will the malfunction? A crashed computer is unsable, or at least until you bring it back on line. A malfunctioning computer is still at least somewhat productive.

I think you should not talk in such vague generalties when discussing such an intricate problem. People might get the wrong impression.

Can you clarify a bit as to what a User can expect to happen to any number of different systems? Bad data is still data, and it can be changed. No data is a much more serious dilemna. I think that if someone is eager to stand on any podium and discuss the particulars about a subject they should be well educated, or at least well versed.

After all, some day someone might ask you to name the leader of India.

-- Alan (at@work. rather not), December 17, 1999.


Careful, Y2K Pro, otherwise Mr Hyatt will point you to his essay which supposedly explains how, despite his predictions being all wrong, he should still be regarded as a credible Y2K analyst.

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@hotmail.com), December 17, 1999.

As a former reporter for major metro dailies, I can vouch for the fact that too many print journalists get many things wrong, but there are some of us who get things right. Usually those of us who get things right are seasoned pros who can pay attention (!) and transcribe everything you say verbatim or tape the conversation.

After being misquoted myself, my strategy has been to find out what the reporter wants to talk about and come up with a detailed press release with good quotes. Take ten minutes to summarize your position with usable quotes, and give (fax) it to 'em before the interview. Most reporters will wait 10 minutes for you to get back to them, if you do it smoothly ... (providing them with backup big picture/local picture info, good quotes and some clarifications to help them out.)

THEN be interviewed carefully and slowly, with a backup tape if possible. You can always ask to see the material once the story is written but before it is printed, but journalism policy generally is to deny you access before publication.

There has been a lot of press bashing in this forum (I have done some myself)-- I am embarrassed by the performance of journalists, especially this year. However, folks need to remember to preserve and support the competent members of the media who are truly an endangered species. Without them, truth is in jeopardy.

Also, to address a previous thread about the "elephant" analogy ... it is the job of a competent press to "get" what all the blind people are saying about the elephant, and then try to describe the elephant for everyone, as best as possible. I don't know how many people in the media have that specialized skill or if they even know that's what they are supposed to be doing. It is a skill that we as journalists must demand of ourselves.

-- (normally@ease.notnow), December 17, 1999.


So much for the integrity of Bible-toting Baptists ;-)

Good preps. Michael.

I think at this point we should all hope that the worst that happens to us is that we get misquoted and ridiculed.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 17, 1999.



---

Since some posters prefer to speak out of turn and exhibit examples in print of how poorly they were reared and how poorly they have maintained awareness of their responsibility to be civil, the following seems necessary.

1). If you are being rude, be quiet until you have something better to say.

2). If you are butting in and maliciously trying to change the subject to attack another poster with derisive comments, be quiet until you have something better to say.

3). If your only intention here is to tear down this forum and its posters, be quiet until you have something better to say.

In short, relearn the lessons of your childhood.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 17, 1999.


Questions for Richard and Y2K Pro (if there is such a thing)...

What have you contributed to society? What have your contributions to this forum been? Are you successful at what you do, and if so, are you good at it? Did you start a web site, become a journalist, and spend hours away from home educating people on the Y2K issue? Where are your documents, evidence, books, videos, and audiotapes, establishing your credibility as debunkers?

You see I have a hard time believing you as you both appear to be lurking Monday morning quarterbacks pointing to what hasn't happened and ignoring what has happened.

A hero is someone who places their conviction and integrity on the line in advance. A coward is a person who lurks on the sideline awaiting the mistakes of those more courageous people.

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), December 17, 1999.


The end of investigative journalism, reduction of intellectual rigor among journalists, and decreased competent editing in news organizations means that the accidental misquote will be increasingly more frequent in the future. Some outlets are little more than collections of such material. The ever-more-frequent intentional misquote (from lowered ethics and lessened journalistic independence from the priorities of those with power and money) is another (relevant) subject. It was certainly useful/convenient for TPTB's "3- day-storm" calming mantra they are bombarding John Q. Public with for MH to be misquoted as he was above. Basically, expect this sort of thing whenever there is gain to be had by the misquoter.

Pollyannas, lay off Hyatt's having overestimated the effects of the critical dates. This is something a number of us did (including me), basing our surmises on insufficient information about unique future events. The story is old and fully understood, excepting only the part to be filled in after rollover.

Hyatt has done highly important work in the Y2K awareness community, hundreds of times more than most posters to this forum (including myself). His personal failings (routine failure to rein in some underlings seriously flawed as people, periodic insufficient intellectual courtesy to other thinkers, occasionally substituting prominence/position for strength of argument) do not negate the service he has provided to society. If there ever is a statue of him placed in a town square, I'd like to be present for the unveiling as part of saluting his deeds.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), December 17, 1999.


And I'll work out a way to keep the pigeons off.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 17, 1999.


Alan,

You said:

"With all due respect, what will the computers do? Will they crash or will the malfunction? A crashed computer is unsable, or at least until you bring it back on line. A malfunctioning computer is still at least somewhat productive."

and also:

"Bad data is still data, and it can be changed. No data is a much more serious dilemna. I think that if someone is eager to stand on any podium and discuss the particulars about a subject they should be well educated, or at least well versed."

I think you should take your own advice. In many situations, no data or a crashed computer are the preferred scenario. As a programmer, you want your program to throw up and die when it hits data it can't handle, rather than keep on chugging and perform in unexpected or dangerous ways. One of the classic examples is of an X-Ray control program that, when receiving unexpected inputs, would give the patient mega doses of radiation. I would rather have my doctor say "I wonder why the x-ray didn't come out?" than say "I wonder why the patient died?".

-- Coder (Coder@Work.Now), December 17, 1999.



Coder,

You're right about the flow of logic in a program. If it doesn't work they way it was intended to then it should be shut down (9999- Abort-Routine). That way you can recall the job log and retrace the steps the program took and when it failed.

But I'm not talking about programs, I'm talking about computers. A crashed computer is not of any use. A computer that still functions to some degree is still going to be faster then a human with a yellow legal pad and a box of pencils.

I've been hearing time and time again that computers will malfunction come the Year 2000. Somehow many people have made the leap of logic that when it malfunctions it's not going to work anymore. Well, anyone who has Internet Expolorer 5 installed on their computer knows that this is not the case. Headaches and bugs aside, it still works the way it was intended.

I don't mean to harp on M. Hyatt, but he is the one who brought it up on this thread and I was just responding to his comments. Gary North does the same thing over and over again. His latest Reality Check went something like "anyone who thinks that embedded chips and bar code readers aren't going to fail are kidding themselves". Gary says FAIL, no malfunction. Big difference.

I think we need a little clarification from these people when they talk about this stuff. If it's "too much trouble" to go and do it for each specific thing they talk about well excuuuuuuuuse-me. This is a very important issue. I think we need to be as accurate as possible lest misinformation is spread.

Of course, this close to the rollover it's getting to be a moot point. But still I wanted to make it so that, looking back, we can see what we did wrong and how we reacted to the Y2K problem.

-- Alan (at@work. rather not), December 17, 1999.


Uncle Bob:

I am terribly sorry that I don't meet your criteria for a credible debunker. At the same time, I'm also a bit worried that you presumably use the same criteria (starting a web site, publishing books, videotapes, etc.) to ascertain the credibility of Y2K analysts, Mr Hyatt included. In my opinion, My Hyatt has never shown that he has any clue at all about the technicalities of the Y2K problem. As far as I know, his experience of computer programming is almost non-existent, and he certainly never shows, in any of his writing, that he has any grasp at all of the nature of software engineering or the role of computers in society.

I've been reading Hyatt's stuff off and on now for the last ten months, and I've never quite been able to tell whether he is just a nutter, or an idiot. His post in this thread finally settles the question for me, though. Witness his list of preps:

Yep, he's a nutter all right. I hope he has fun with his guns.

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@hotmail.com), December 17, 1999.


I happen to generally agree with the wisdom of every preparation Hyatt has listed above that he has taken, excepting only the purchase of a generator. "It's not the risk, it's the stakes", and all that. Re his qualifications on IT, here is a cut-and-paste from his website:

"Professionally, Hyatt has worked in the publishing industry for nearly 20 years. Currently, he serves as Senior Vice President and Associate Publisher of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the country's tenth largest book publisher. In this capacity he is responsible for all product development and also serves on the company's "Year 2000 Task Force." As a result, he has first-hand experience dealing with the complexities and challenges of the year 2000 computer problem from a corporate perspective.

Hyatt has been heavily involved with personal computers since 1982, when he bought one of the first IBM-PCs. Self-taught, he is fluent in Pascal and three dialects of BASIC. As a part-time programming enthusiast, he has written numerous custom applications for his own use and other companies around the world. He is the author of two shareware packages that are commercially available on the Internet. He is also an active beta-tester for several large software publishers."

I do not always care for the man's methods of doing things, but we should at least be even-handed about our descriptions of people.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), December 17, 1999.


y2k is as much a management and social problem as it is a computer problem. the inter-connectivity might even be more apparent to someone like me who doesn't know beans about computers than it is to someone who is immersed on a daily basis.

I hope Michael Hyatt is wrong--but I applaud his efforts and personally am glad he was there for those of us who try to prepare.

-- Bob Grove (mediatrix@mediatrixtours.com), December 17, 1999.


Alan, you wrote, "With all due respect, what will the computers do? Will they crash or will the malfunction?"

If you're asking what portion of all computers would have been subject to one versus the other, I don't see how that could be answered without engaging in wild speculation.

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), December 17, 1999.



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