WASHINGTON — The Senate’s Special Committee on the Year 2000
Technology Problem held hearings yesterday on community Y2K preparedness
with some pretty upset grass-roots activists. Fortunately for the
senators, the witnesses’ anger was aimed more at the White House and the
nation’s print and broadcast press.
Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, chairman of the committee, even
embraced the some-of-my-best-friends-are-survivalists mode (not hard to
believe, since he’s a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in a Mormon state) to reveal that “I have already purchased a
55-gallon drum, which I will fill with water well before the end of the
year.”
Pamola O’Reilly, director of research for the Cassandra
Project, an influential center for
community Y2K preparations, told the senators “there is too much ‘happy
talk’ coming from our administration, government agencies, corporations
and institutions.”
This “happy talk,” O’Reilly noted, is excused as necessary to
prevent “panic.” “But when I ask them what they mean by ‘panic,'” she
said, “they define it as people pulling their money out of the bank or
selling off stock. With few exceptions, their concern seems not for our
families’ health, safety and welfare, but with not rocking the economic
boat.”
“I have repeatedly called upon the president, and his Y2K Council, to
provide leadership on this Y2K issue,” O’Reilly continued. “There has
been little or no response of real substance. The administration’s
current plan is to respond with money and resources to fix problems
after they occur. This approach is self-serving, an act of cowardice,
and an abdication of responsibility.”
Liza K. Christian, former executive director of the Rogue Valley
(Oregon) Y2K Task Force, voiced similar sentiments. There’s “an
orchestrated public relations campaign designed to tranquilize the
American public,” she asserted, “but such misleading and artificial
restraint will breed an even worse panic later. Adequate preparation
prevents panic.”
“What is needed more than anything else,” added Michael Nolan, city
administrator of Norfolk, Neb.,
“is a level of leadership that
rises to a level of stewardship.”
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., vice-chairman of the committee,
took that occasion to praise his Republican chairman: “If not for
Senator Bennett’s leadership, we wouldn’t be talking about this now.”
Nolan made it clear he was referring to the other end of Pennsylvania
Avenue.
Dodd agreed that President Clinton had taken too long to create a Y2K
Council. “But do you realize,” pleaded the Democratic vice-chairman,
“how difficult it was to get him [the President] to pay any
attention to this issue at all?”
Most of the Y2K community organizers viewed the press almost as
harshly as the administration.
“Where is the investigative journalism?” asked Ms. Christian. “In
our experience, the media are looking for sound bites and headlines.
Articles and interviews often ridicule those who choose to make
preparations to ‘survive’ in the event of hardship and crisis — even
including those who simply want to help the less fortunate.”
After the preparedness panel, however, a media panel testified before
the committee, and several of its members were — if anything — even
more direct and forthright in attacking the White House “happy news”
campaign.
Kerry Brock, director of broadcasting at the Media Studies
Center in New York City, noted that “the
government’s own Y2K czar, John Koskinen, advises journalists
continually to drive toward the facts.” Unfortunately, she asserted,
“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 1,400 small
telephone companies. He indicates we should not worry — but we should
worry.”
“These are not facts, but public valium,” Brock proclaimed.
“Unfortunately,” she added, “journalists on the beat tell us they now
find information that looks suspiciously like a cover-up.” She related
how ABC correspondent James Walker found these 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.”
James Adams, another member of the media panel, was chief executive
officer of United Press International and managing editor of the London
Sunday Times before becoming chief executive officer of
Infrastructure Defense Inc. “The media are
only as good as the sources that are available to them,” he told the
senators, “and in the case of Y2K the political leadership has abrogated
its responsibility and left the stage empty.”
Adams noted how the British government has been “orchestrating a
national publicity campaign” urging citizens to prepare for Y2K. “By
contrast, in America,” Adams continued, “President Clinton, the leader
of the world’s most powerful nation, and Vice President Al Gore, the
technology champion, have kept a very low profile. There has been no
national advertising campaign, no coordinated effort to prepare business
or the public, and — with the notable exception of some members of this
committee, this panel, and a handful of others in Congress — no effort
to address this vital issue.”
“In this vacuum,” Adams said, “it is not surprising that the media
have been doing a pretty shoddy job.”
Still, Adams sees a ray of hope. “The Internet is increasingly the
source people turn to first when they need to know,” he concluded. “The
arrogance that existed in the traditional media supplier-customer
relationship no longer works when the medium is bi-directional.”
David Franke is a WorldNetDaily
Washington correspondent.
