I found this while surfing around. Enjoy!

Senate: Y2k and the Media Message Bill Koenig - May 27, 1999

Since John Koskinen (The Y2k Czar) hired a public relations firm to help calm America's fear over Y2k, there has been an increase in public confidence that Y2k will be a non-event at best. In a recent estimate, 80% of Americans now believes Y2k will have very little impact on their lives.

But now the TV networks and local stations are beginning to spend more time on Y2k and its potential impact. In the last year most of the press was given by newspapers, but that is changing.

The message below was given yesterday to the Senate's special Y2k committee by a broadcasting executive. The message spoke of the problem reporting on Y2k with so much conflicting information.

I might also add, the areas I think with the greatest risk are the imported oil situation in the U.S. (Four of five major oil producers, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico will not be ready on time, while Canada is projected to be prepared.) Today the U.S. imports 60% of its oil. This is an economic concern as well as national security concern according to Washington insiders.

Also, much of "just-in-time" manufacturing in the United States relies on parts from all over the world. According to an example given last year at a National Press Club event, if a Chrysler plant has 1% of their parts not available the whole plant would have to be shutdown until the necessary parts were in place.

On the defense front, the U.S. Y2k assistance to the Russian military was put on hold when the Kosovo conflict began; so the weapons, missiles and nuclear facilities have a slim chance of being prepared on time. Yesterday, a Russian official used the example of a mistaken weapon release on September 9, 1999 as an area of his greatest concern.

The other area of concern would be international banking. Over $1 trillion dollars a day moves through the international monetary systems, a sizable glitch could cause a domino effect throughout the world. ( I have a friend completing a white-paper on the Y2k risks to the financial derivatives market, this could be the biggest fiasco of all. We hope to have that available in the next few weeks.)

In conclusion, anyone who thinks Y2k will not produce serious consequences has not studied all the facts. As usual I prefer getting my information from men and women who have macro economic perspectives, who understand international business and are industry professionals.

We must remember, no one really knows what the Y2k event will be like because there is no history of similar events, no one knows who will be ready or who will not, plus no one knows how satisfactory the work performed will be. And no one really knows how people will respond to Y2k related events. Public panic remains the governments greatest concern.

Prudent and sound preparation remain advisable. And as I have said many times before, this is not just about Y2k, there are many other looming events with serious potential ramifications.

__________

Kerry Brock: Director of Broadcasting, Media Studies Center The Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/hearings/052599/brock.html May 25, 1999

Y2K is a unique tale playing itself out on the landscape of American journalism as part concern and part cartoon. And as you said, Senator Bennett, "How do we strike a balance between Paul Revere and Chicken Little?" In recent months my organization, the Media Studies Center, has heard from hundreds of journalists who are looking for the proper voice in which to tell this story. In the words of a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News, right now journalists on this beat are forced into guessing.

Many news organizations are not digging into the technical vulnerabilities of their towns, cities, and states. In part, because of a lack of leadership from the federal government. Not only a lack of leadership, but also a lack of consensus within government entities charged with gathering these facts.

The governments' own Y2K Czar, John Koskinen, advises journalists to continually drive toward the facts. Though it seems obvious to journalists in the know, Mr. Koskinen seems to avoid facts. Always in a calm and low key presentation, he tells us the power industry nationally has done well but he's concerned about local power companies. He thinks the national telephone systems will work but he is concerned about the 1400 small telephone companies. He indicates we should not worry but we should worry.

These are not facts, but public valium, and the news media as a whole is not picking up on it. As Jeff Gralnick of CNN told us "journalists are drowning in a sea of conflicting information."

In the absence of consistent facts, government proclamations that are not stories become stories. Consider these headlines; "FAA head books flight for New Year's," "Y2K Czar Sees Serene January 1," "Don't Panic Over Y2K, Senators Say."

Then, journalists find conflicting information in the government's own Y2K websites. For starters, this Senate committee's web site offers a clear link to Mr. Koskinen's Y2K. gov website but Mr Koskinen's buries its link back to the Senate's. Why? Is there a difference of opinion between the two?

Senator Dodd, you state: "The world oil supply faces a series of Y2K risks from the well in the ground to the gas station in your neighborhood." Mr. Koskinen says, " Although there may be some minor disruptions .... the industries are confident ... that the supply of natural gas and petroleum...products (will be) uninterrupted."

This committee cites a GAO survey that raises major concern over the readiness of America's water utilities. On the other hand, Mr Koskinen reports cautious optimism that water utility services will continue uninterrupted by Y2K issues. Journalists are not getting a clear and consistent message . Marsha Stepanek of Business Week magazine says "this story takes commitment and manpower" and Senators, you need to explain why news organization should give it both.

A few journalists have been assigned the Y2K beat and they get it; they understand this issue is not black and white - it cannot be polarized. Long ago they abandoned the plane-falling-out-of-the sky-analogies in their reporting. These are the reporters looking every day for hard information. Journalists want you to admit what you don't know and admit why that worries you. Then they can explain to the public how the lack of information might signal problems. And they can report how the government suggests we prepare to cope with potential problems.

Unfortunately, journalists on this beat tell us they now find information that looks suspiciously like a cover up. ABC correspondent, James Walker, found the following instructions on an electric utilities website regarding a Y2K drill.

"Do not make the drill too complex. We want to have a successful and meaningful story for publication." Then there is the rest of the news media, reporters doing stories every day on health, finance, religion, politics, media, the arts, entertainment, news, weather and sports. There is a potential Y2K issue in each of these areas and more. Help journalists understand that it is not just a technology story and help them explain that to the rest of America.

It is important to recognize that there are individual examples of fine Y2K coverage every day and local news organizations taking it upon themselves to make preparedness suggestions. News reports in Miami tell residents to prepare as if for a hurricane, in San Francisco as if an earthquake, in Oklahoma as if a tornado. But it remains a patchwork of reporting that has not formed a nationwide mosaic of understanding.

Big companies are admitting in increasing numbers that they won't be ready in time. Perhaps the government could convene a summit that brings captains of industry together to explain to journalists how system breakdowns in the private sector might affect the public. Through the news media you could instantly attach honesty, leadership, public understanding and perhaps calm, supplanting the current environment of ignorance, confusion and in some cases, panic.

Y2K is not a hurricane earthquake or tornado: this is an expected event. If Y2K failures are a fraction of what the government believes they might be, in the post- millennium blame game, journalists will haunt the people responsible for duplicity.

-- bruce (blambie@home.com), May 30, 1999

Answers

Armed with pitchforks, according to Kosky. Actually, from what we've seen, the average Joe has stocked up a far more sophisticated arsenal.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), May 30, 1999.

Oh brother! Faced with something like this, I hardly know where to begin. Well, let me take a few swings at it.

(1) What does it really mean to say "Saudi Arabia" is not going to be ready? Where did this information come from? What does it refer to? Are they talking about government services? Which ones? Is it "Saudi Arabia" (whoever that is) who performs remediation/testing on their domestic oil industry, or is it the oil companies (multinationals)? I'm willing to believe that the Saudi government won't fix all their date bugs (in the absence of any hard evidence I've ever seen), but how can I tell what this might encompass? If the Saudi government were completely remediated and tested (according to a detailed and reliable source), would this let us draw *any* valid conclusions about the oil operations going on there?

(2) Yes, of course there are vulnerabilities. This post mentions JIT and banking and weapons. Every economy has key vulnerabilities, and this has always been true. As only one example, non-technological agrarian societies have always been vulnerable to drought. But then the story goes on to say "anyone who thinks Y2k will not produce serious consequences has not studied all the facts." Wait a minute here. The only 'fact' presented is that there are key vulnerabilities, followed by the unsupported assertion that some countries won't be "ready". No effort is made to show the connections between them. This is like saying that there isn't enough paint to paint every structure in the world, and weather is constantly deteriorating existing paint. Therefore, anyone who fails to see the inevitable 'paint crisis' hasn't studied the facts!

(3) Next, we have the complaint that the government isn't helping the media do their investigations. Instead, the reporters are actually having to spend time finding it out all by themselves! And hey, this is a hard story. Sound bites are not easy to come by, the visuals are nonexistent, the information is problematical and contradictory, and the situation is changing rapidly. Give us some direction here! And the government doesn't know what's going to happen either. What duplicity! We (the media) can't figure out *what's* going to happen, we need the government to tell us. And if they don't know either, they must be lying! Talk about whining.

(4) I'm puzzled by the statement that "Big companies are admitting in increasing numbers that they won't be ready in time." Which ones are these? Surely if anyone were saying anything like this, each such admission would be trumpeted on this forum gleefully. And so far, the only one I've seen is Chevron, and Chevron only went so far as to say they'd decided that some noncompliances weren't worth the effort to remediate. So who are these companies, and where are these admissions, and what is the functional nature of this lack of "readiness"? If Kerry Brock knows, why doesn't he say so?

All I can get out of all this is that there are legitimate causes for concern (I agree) and salient data are damn hard to come by (I agree again). And IF serious problems happen in key places, THEN we'll have big problems (can't argue with that either). Not much meat on them bones.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 30, 1999.

Flint,

Just one word about Sadia Arabia, WATER

-- CT (ct@no.yr), May 30, 1999.

CT:

I assume you're referring to the desalinization plants? I admit I haven't seen anything about them at all, other than they exist (and of course wouldn't have been built if they weren't necessary). I don't know who runs them, nor do I know how they work, nor do I know what (if anything) has been done to assess or test them. Do you? Our information about Saudi Arabia isn't very detailed, to say the least. It seems likely that someone would have done at least something to address these plants, but I haven't seen anything one way or the other. Have you?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 30, 1999.

Flint,

The Saudi Government operates the plants, all indications are that they don't understand Y2k and have done nothing, country wide. I would suspect some civil unrest when the water stops, but I'm just a stupid doom zoombie

-- CT (ct@no.yr), May 30, 1999.

CT:

In other words, your position is that since we don't have any idea what (if anything) the Saudis are doing, *therefore* the water will stop. OK, fair enough. Like I've said before, what really separates the pollys from the doomers is the assumptions they make in the absence of any information. When you don't know, you assume the worst. When I don't know, I assume I don't know.

I'll agree, though, that IF the plants stop for any length of time, and IF no stopgap measures can be found, then many Saudis will have big problems. I can't predict what might happen. Maybe water will be trucked to the oil operations, and non-oil citizens will have to go elsewhere or die of thirst. But I can only guess in the dark.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 30, 1999.

Flint,

Sorry, I ment to say IF the water stops. Trucking in water from the outside PROBABLY would not be an option ( long way to truck, not enough trucks ) Kinda like IF Bennett and Kosy are right about their statement of 30,000,000 US citizens out of water after roll over, long way to truck, not enough trucks.

-- CT (ct@no.yr), May 30, 1999.

Snip:

"Since John Koskinen (The Y2k Czar) hired a public relations firm to help calm America's fear over Y2k, there has been an increase in public confidence that Y2k will be a non-event at best. In a recent estimate, 80% of Americans now believes Y2k will have very little impact on their lives. "

You can bet your bottom dollar that part of the public relations firms activities were to see that forums like this one had input from PAID shills. Might be interesting to GUESS who !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 30, 1999.

If a shill were to decide that the best way to combat fear is to consistently depict doomers as mindless paranoids, then we have a few excellent candidates. But I don't believe this, I think some of these people really *are* mindless paranoids.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 30, 1999.

Websters New World Definition:

Shill ....... a confederate, as of a carnival operator who pretends to buy, bet etc. as to lure others.

Flint, there is NO EXCUSE for LYING or SHILLING, none whats so ever.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 30, 1999.

"On the defense front, the U.S. Y2k assistance to the Russian military was put on hold when the Kosovo conflict began; so the weapons, missiles and nuclear facilities have a slim chance of being prepared on time. Yesterday, a Russian official used the example of a mistaken weapon release on September 9, 1999 as an area of his greatest concern."

How about that! Russians worried about an accidental launch on 9/9/99.

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), May 30, 1999.

Ray:

I agree completely. Not only is there no excuse, there's no indication that anything of the sort is being done. The situation easily allows for a very wide range of opinions, which is exactly what we see here. I wouldn't expect anything else.

But this is the 3rd or 4th time you've started squawking about shills. Why? Is it beyond your grasp that anyone might examine *all* the signs, rather than just the bad ones?

By the way, I know that there's an art to communication. Some are much better at it than others. Apparently, you feel that effective communications and lying are the same thing, and that all a PR firm does is misrepresent. So I ask you, if the PR firm were to emphasize how serious the problem is and how important personal preparation is, would you still attack anyone saying the same thing as a shill? After all, the PR firm would be *paid* to say those things. Or do you reserve that accusation for those who disagree with you?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 30, 1999.

Flint, if you don't think this Administration has used every trick in the book to sway public opinion, including SHILLS on this forum then there is a bridge in BROOKLYN waiting for you to buy. LYING is an acceptable practice with this administration and y2k is NO EXCEPTION.

I will continue to point this out as long as I live and breath.

This Administration had an opportunity years ago to step up to the plate and assume a leadership roll in y2k. They did not. Over a year ago they elected to hire the SHILL of all SHILLS, John Koskinen to foster their complete denial of the facts. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. You can bet your bottom dollar THEY will not take the fall. Wonder who they will pin it on!!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 30, 1999.

Flint, any comments on my previous post?

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 30, 1999.

Ray:

OK, I'll do what I can.

Of course we have no evidence that any contributor to this forum is being paid by anyone to argue any given position. I'd personally consider this unlikely, and even if you're right, I'd have to consider it money ill-spent. This forum doesn't have enough public exposure to make much difference, all in all. My position has always been to prepare for more than you expect, and not to expect more than *all* the evidence taken together really indicates. If you think I'm misleading people by advocating belt and suspenders preparations but not getting carried away applying tunnel vision, that's your opinion. I consider our proceedings to be investigative rather than adversarial. If you feel otherwise, fine.

Also, I just don't feel that the available material is unequivocal. If it were, what would Norm do [g]? It seems pretty clear to me that what we read is incomplete, often misleading, and of dubious reliability. No matter what position it takes. We're talking about the future here, and about the impacts of details unavailable to anybody. We can all guess about the future and about those details, and some of our guesses might be wrong. How you can say that guessing wrong is lying is beyond me. How you can decide that guesses that haven't yet been proved either right OR wrong are lies is even further beyond me.

I also don't feel that the position the administration has chosen to defend is correct. It seems unnecessarily dangerous to me. But it isn't a denial of the 'facts', but rather an assessment of the sum of the material available that emphasizes the positive. There really is a lot to be said for both sides of this debate. Clamping your fingers in your ears and shouting that only *your* side is the truth may make you feel better, but it's not AT ALL a big-picture method of assessment.

As for the chickens coming home to roost, what chickens? We've sailed through several periods that almost everyone expected to be bad, and almost nothing happened. OK, I'm willing to accept that these dates were false alarms, and the real biggies will happen next year. Until then, I don't see no chickens.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 30, 1999.

Flint, maybe you don't see no chickens, but the rest of us see those chickens in our near future; the dynamics of the y2k situation dictate that an individual's response must be made upon imperfect and patchy information, for to leave our decisions until we have the best possible information, i.e. the last minute, is to negate the whole purpose of understanding the situation. We understand so we can prepare, in whatever ways. And preparation takes time. Therefore we have to reach an understanding ahead of time, remaining conscious that this is epistemically imperfect, but neccessitated by the real situation. It is much more useful to reach a 70% correct understanding (that you act upon)about y2k in 1998, than it is to reach a 90% correct understanding about y2k in dec 1999. I think you have to hurry up and understand y2k.

-- humpty (no.6@thevillage.com), May 30, 1999.

I worked in Saudi for 2+ years (Saudi Arabian Airlines in Jeddah).

IMHO - the country will tank - big time. They rely exclusively on expats, but they are not willing to pay decent wages any more, that's why I and all my compadres left. I hear it's even worse now. They really have no clue.

Now the problem is they rely heavily on desalinisation plants (multitudinous embeddeds), oil production (ditto), shipping (ditto), ports (mid-levels), airports (mainframes, embeddeds), banking (we ALL know what will happen there ;) ).

The population is lazy and ignorant. Not their fault - their government has imported all skilled labour from the US, UK and India, maids from the Phillipines - the managers of course are all Saudis who average a 2-3 hour day if you are lucky. The managers - needless to say, have no clue. The population is given, free, an enormous amount of money and welfare services which just make them lazier each year. I'm generalising of course, some Saudis are extremely well educated and hard-working, however these are in the minority and will have no sway on the outcome.

They will be sand. Hot sand.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 30, 1999.

There is a long-standing environmental tenet commonly referred to as the "Precautionary Principle." It is the rationale behind the Kyoto Accords on global warming, as well as insurance, seat belts and suspenders --- and preparations for effects of Y2K and other better known disasters.

Sometime, waiting for the "just the facts, ma'am" can get you killed....or worse.

Hallyx

"There are bad omens in the heavens. Our managers have been false Gods, and our geeks unreliable prophets. When downtime, screwups, delays and shortages (the 4 horsemen of the technocalypse) march across the land, take care you aren't in their path." --- Flint

-- Hallyx (Halyx@aol.com), May 31, 1999.

good quote Flint, you have potential ... :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 31, 1999.

I've always claimed that preparation is prudent, and occasionally I discuss my own preparations. To me, just-in-case preparations are rational. I've never understood those who claim I'm discouraging people from preparing because I try to avoid coming to irrational conclusions, or point out what I consider jumping to unsupported conclusions.

When I think someone is barking up the wrong tree, I do my best to *show* why I think this is true, rather than just calling them names. Maybe I don't always succeed?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 31, 1999.

Flint,

I agree with your position of just in case preps. It seems to be the only logical approach. To disagree with this view just doesn't make sense to me.

I also appreciate your attempts to rationalize when others jump to conclusions based on incomplete information.

We can only hope for the best while preparing for the worst. Discussing the worst scenarios can often lead to ideas to help prepare more, and that is what I look for here.

I hope that by the end of the year I will be in a position to be able to exist no matter what happens. I may not make it through all the possibilities, but I have to try. To do nothing is just not logical.

Thanks.

-- J (jart5@bellsouth.net), May 31, 1999.

J:

I agree it makes sense to prepare for as many possibilities as you can. But it also makes sense to realize that (1) the number of possibilities is infinite, and you can't prepare against all of them; and (2) each possibility has a probability attached to it, and the vast majority of these probabilities fall *far* short of 100%.

I try to gear my preparations so as to be most prepared for what I consider most likely, and make the conscious decision *not* to prepare for what I consider outlandish. My resources are limited, and it makes sense to me to allocate them where I think they'll do the most good. That's mostly why I'm here in the first place. Time will tell how accurate my evaluation turns out to be.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 31, 1999.

Now children. Any wonder why Ed is bugging out. There is nothing left to be said. You believe or you don't. You prepare or you don't. Hoard bullets or you don't.

There comes a time when all smart parents tell ther kids to, "take your arguement outside. I don't want to hear it anymore

-- sharon l (cc@iwaynet.net), May 31, 1999.

Flint,

Regarding middle eastern desalinization plants, I recall a post (and although I think it was on this forum, it may have been on another) from one who claimed to be an engineer of some stripe, who was involved with them. Judging from his writing, he was not a native English speaker, but there was nothing wrong with his reasoning. As is usually the case however, he was anonymous and his information was no more verifiable than most that we find available.

Anyway, his take was that there was a great deal of date sensitive logic in the code for such plants, that the oil production of the middle east was greatly dependent on them and that there was little if any chance of such plants being remediated in time to avert disruptions.

Does anyone else recall this post?

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), May 31, 1999.

Thanks, Hardliner. I didn't see that post, but I don't have time to track everything either. An update would be nice.

I continue to be amazed by the (implied) attitude that "Here's something we can't live without if it fails. It's our job to make sure it doesn't fail. So let's ignore it."

The assumption that this attitude is nearly universal throughout most of the world is hard to swallow. You wonder how these installations ever got built in the first place if they knew or cared so little about them.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 31, 1999.

Flint,

Here's the article that I was thinking of. It was referred to in a post on this forum. Also, I was wrong in thinking that the guy claimed engineering credentials. Still, it seems a pretty well balanced piece. It's pretty old, but I haven't seen anything since on the subject. It's probably just one more unknown for us all to ponder.

I too am amazed, not only at the attitude you describe, but by humanity in general. Whoever it was that said that man was a rational animal was dreaming!

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), May 31, 1999.