Report on NPR tonight from NY re recent community meeting with President's y2k Committee

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Aloha - you know, my geographical location and bizzare work schedule always seems to put me a dollar short and a day behind the rest of you, so this may have already been commented on. This evening on All Things Considered on NPR there was a 5 minute segment reporting on the recent above mentioned community meeting in NY. The meeting was led by the President's Special K, and numerous local heads of industries also attended (the commentator referred to them as a large, daunting group of industry professionals). Of interest in the report was:

1) only 100 community members attended (in NY City ???). Why? Apparently the meeting had not been announced in a single New York newspaper. One attendee said the only reason he knew about it was because he had read about it in the Boston Globe;

2) Special K upped the ante from 3 days to 4;

3) a health care provider asked what provisions were being made for the elderly and disabled should there be utility outages -- answer: "meals will be provided, schools will be opened to provide a warm shelter" and if the elevators shut down "the elderly will be escorted";

4) when one audience member asked why the government has waited so long to alert the populace the answer was that a) early notice could actually be counterproductive;

b) with the preparations deemed necessary, there isn't much difference between 114 days notice and 90 days notice;

c) big campaign push planned for October -- plenty of time for people to prepare for 3-4 days;

5) another question concerning late notice from the government -- answer:it was something like "We're here now aren't we? You shouldn't be depending on the government to take care of you -- you need to take care of yourself." Answer from the audience "I'm not depending on the government -- I've got my generator, I've got my etc, etc. " Applause could be heard in the background.

Were any of you there? Do you know anyone who was?

-- grngrl (jhandt@gte.net), September 11, 1999

Answers

I heard the report, as well. It should be available today (Saturday) via Realaudio on www.npr.org. P. Shannon was the speaker that noted that he heard about the meeting thru the Boston paper.

-- Alexi (Alexi@not-in-the-dark.com), September 11, 1999.

So... previously we heard (from Koskinen and Abrams) that the Government did not feel nationwide ads to inform people about Y2K and the need for preps were the best idea, why? Because a global campaign like that is too general.. much better to leave it to these "community conversations" so they can discuss the nitty-gritty of the local situation. And, oh yes, it is up to the individual to contact their local utilities, banks, and businesses to find out if they are compliant. Then they hold a take a whole bunch of Y2K VIPs to have a "conversation" with the people of New York (what's the population? 2 million?).. only they forget to invite them. No ads.. no notice. Was the press there? Besides NPR I mean? Was it covered by the NY Times, NY Daily News, NY Post? (link please)

Or was this just "due diligence".. one more box to check off to avoid accountability after the fact. Hey.. we held the "conversations".. not our fault if the people didn't prepare like we told them. Not our fault if they didn't do the investigations of their utilities and businesses like we told them. Not our fault. Its those OTHER countries. Its those STATES, and LOCAL governments. Its - above all else THOSE STOCKPILERS AND HOARDERS. Not our fault... nosiree Bill.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 11, 1999.


You can get the audio (Realaudio) of this piece from NPR's web site.

Let me see if this link works NPR This should take you to a program summary page, then scroll down and click on the "Y2K Bug" link.

I guess I have to ask the question: Why wait unit October to start your public campaign to prepare? Now is better than later.

Perhaps they think that people will tune it out if the campaign goes on too long. But I would answer that I've seen product advertisements aired over a longer time frame.

Mikey2k

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), September 11, 1999.


HTML doesn't like me today. Here's the link in the clear:

http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=09/10/1999&PrgID=2

or, go to www.npr.org, choose the Radio Program "All things considered from the pull-down list box & on the next page select the "Latest Show" (if you do it today).

Let me give HTML one more chance while I'm at it. try this

Mikey2k

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), September 11, 1999.


Direct link to real audio file: Y2K Bug

-- NPR's Margot Adler reports the chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 conversion has been holding town meetings across the country, and this week arrived in New York City. Town officials often attend the meetings, and ordinary citizens can pose questions to experts. But there has been little publicity for them, because of a desire to avoid undue Y2K panic. (5:30)

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 11, 1999.



grngrl,

Read these related threads with our own forum attendee comments... from Mara and pshannon.

Diane

Conversion to Polly(the)ism in NYC--God Bless Koskinen

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001NIR

Okay, Everybody!: "IIIII'll Leave New Yoooooork". recent Audits and hearings on NYC Y2K sitchiation

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001NYg



-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 11, 1999.


I just checked New York Times for coverage of the "Community Conversation".. no news. Guess the Czar coming to town just wasn't newsworthy. What was the date of the "conversation"? Has anyone seen any coverage in any of the other NY papers?

-- Linda (
lwmb@psln.com), September 11, 1999.

This NPR report reminds me a lot of the Community Conversation I attended in June...

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

...at which most of those in attendance worked for state government or were representing some kind of organization. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine that, both times, the goal was to calm city or state workers who would later be talking to co-workers who probably already perceive these city or state workers as "Y2K experts."

By coincidence, a friend of mine who works for a local radio station was at work yesterday evening when a fax came in about four upcoming Community Conversations for Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky to be held between September 14 and September 22. The fax was received from the Louisville/Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency. I'll post the press release and the schedule for the "conversations" on another thread.

Pshannon made an good point about the relative lack of publicity about these events, which are already heavy with spin. You'd think that at the very least, copies of the American Red Cross Y2K pamphlet could be mailed out to the public. Did New York City indicate what methods it's planning to use to get the message out to the public in October?

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 11, 1999.


Also see this thread:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001OAv

"New York City Y2K "Community Conversation" on National Public Radio"

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 11, 1999.


Somehow, I had missed this thread when I posted mine above.

The New York Times did run a boxed piece about the "Conversation" in the newspaper on Thursday, on page B-5, underneath a color spread about 9/9/99 that discussed lottery tickets, Wiccan priests, Satan and 999 Brand Beef Bologna. It was not available on their website.

Barnaby Feder, who wrote the piece, and several others on Y2K (including the dreaded "Doomsayer Pushes Year 2000 Panic Button With Old Data" article about the Jim Lord Navy Report, which I thought read more like a Tabloid piece than something from "The Newspaper of Record") sent me an e-mail in which he wrote:

"...Although I don't know for sure, I suspect the reason the Globe mentioned it was that they saw it on the Times News Service. Moreover, I mentioned the original plans for the meeting in my report on the RPA review of the city last May and we even ran a short in July noting the rescheduling when the city put it off..."

(The Boston Globe is OWNED by the New York Times...) So, they printed something about it in JULY! Big whoop!

There was no mention of the meeting in the Daily News, Post, or Newsday.

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), September 11, 1999.



So.. 3 major papers have NO NOTICE.. and one hides a tiny blurb and doesn't put it on the web. How does this happen? Who arranges these "conversations".. Koskinen's office, right? They had to arrange for all those "experts" to be there (anyone who has ever arranged a meeting of more than 2 people knows that is difficult), had to arrange a place. Did they just forget to invite the public (the other half of the conversation)? Or did they dutifully send out public service announcements but all the media just decided that the President's Y2K Czar wasn't worth the print or air space? Not likely. Didn't I hear that the attendance was in the 100-200 range? In New York? The families of the speakers could account for a big chunk of that. If they had posted flyers in the local deli's they should have gotten a better response than that. And Patrick... even though there wasn't much advance notice, were the press in attendance at the "conversation"? If not, why not? If so, where are the post-conversation write-ups?

Sorry... this just smells. Smells more like a legal CYA due diligence activity than a sincere attempt to communicate with a community. They took the trouble to put together a smiley-faced video, but couldn't be bothered to contact community leaders and post notices?

Check off New York city. They've been informed. Next city.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 11, 1999.


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