Peter Jennings -- Doom and Gloomer?

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Last night, right after reporting negative news on the Japanese nuke accident, he went to y2k and spoke on "things not working." He said that many countries are ill prepared for airport flights and up to 80% of businesses will not complete all of their fixes (I don't think critical missions was mentioned). There may have been another point, but I don't recall it. So, my point is this: Why don't we all call him a "fearmonger" and a "doom and gloomer" as the pollies call us (prudent people) this?

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), October 01, 1999

Answers

Did Peter Jennings actually suggest that people DO ANYTHING? Did he say that, with only a scant THREE MONTHS to go, there was not much that anyone COULD do unless they were ALREADY mostly prepared???

Or did he just kind of say, yeah, stuff will happen, but we will all just muddle through and life will go on? Therein lies the difference....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 01, 1999.

Larry,

I saw that. Besides airports and the readiness of multi-national corporations, the closing of chemical facilities at rollover to be on the safe side by large firms like DuPont was also mentioned.

You're right--some of the most sobering news about Y2K comes from official sources, whether it's Peter Jennings or the United States Senate...

http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/documents/100dayrpt/

In HTML:

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

...or the House of Representitives:

http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/y2k/index.htm

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), October 01, 1999.


I saw it, too. He didn't blink. Not something one would GI from. THe mind would glaze over...

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

King of Spain: I can't believe I just saw you use the word "muddle" without mentioning wrestling.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), October 01, 1999.

Linkmeister -- You're right. I remember now, you jarred my memory.

King of Spain -- Peter Jennings didn't say a thing about preparations. My guess is that if he did...well he would look like us and we can't have that can we?

-- Larry (cobol.programer@usa.net), October 01, 1999.



I wonder if he'll do another Y2K special... like he did last year? Or not?

Keep smilin'!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.


The thing that has struck me over the last week or so is the reporting on Y2K on the news is not of a condescending nature. Every mention of Y2K seems to be with the aire of "Of course, there will be problems, people". Kinda like the inevitable traffic jam at rush hour. Like it's all old news. Now, nobody is saying to prepare or anything, but they are also not adding the obligatory, "Failures will be minimal and have no impact." I keep waiting for the smile and wink and smirk that I'm used to, but they're not showing up. Anyone else noticing this small shift?

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), October 02, 1999.

Margie,

I've noticed a subtle shift. Have you seen the following thread with the unusually candid comments by John Koskinen?

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

Most of the public, though, has not heard these comments--at least not yet.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), October 02, 1999.


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