comp.software.year-2000 Ed Yourdon Y2K Media report
From: Ed Yourdon <ed@yourdon.com>
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
Subject: Y2K Media: a report from the front
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 23:44:08 -0500
To Cory Hamasaki, Paul Milne, Dave Eastabrook, Scott Secor, and all of the
other noisy participants on this newsgroup,
As many of you know, I lurk regularly and occasionally offer an opinion or two
about the state of affairs concerning the Y2K issue that we're all so worried
about. My posting tonight, typed and uploaded from the Hay-Adams hotel in
Washington, across the street from the White House, is simple: it doesn't
matter what any of us say, because it's all being lost in the noise of media overload.
Our "Time Bomb 2000" book, which my daughter and I wrote last summer, was
released by Prentice-Hall in early January; we have been very pleased with its
success, as indicated by having reached #38 on the Amazon web site list of
"hot books" for January 1998. However, there are at least two computer books
with higher ratings, including one Java book. And in addition to works of
serious fiction, we've been outranked by such books as "How to Have
Grrrrrreeeaat Sex" and other such non-computer books. Y2K is not sexy...
During the past month, I've had about 30-40 on-line interviews with radio
stations all over the country, as well as approx 10-12 TV interviews; we
expect to have a similar level of media activity in the next two months, and
possbily beyond. Net result: it doesn't matter. If I get three minutes of
air-time, Sonny Bono's ski accident will get 3,000 minutes. You really can't
appreciate this until you wander into the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta,
as I did earlier today for my on-screen interview about the book. I had a
very sympathetic, knowledgeable, concerned interviewer and producer who filmed
a grand total of 3.5 minutes of discussion with me, half of which was
concerned with such world-shattering topics as, "So, what should the home PC
user do about the the possible Y2K problem on his home pC?". Meanwhile, there
were a hundred TV screens on the wall showing the other events of the day.
Massacres in country X, corruption in country Y, a massive flood in country Z,
a thousand other crises and catastrophes. Clinton did this, Gore did that,
Madonna decided to show a picture of her baby, the Knicks did this, Michael
Jordan did that, blah blah blah. It's stunning, and utterly overwhelming.
Y2K gets lost in the noise.
I don't see ANY chance of this changing for the rest of 1998, even though we
might all be encouraged by the increased media coverage relative to 1997 and
1996. It's all relative: even if the amount of media coverage doubles or
quadruples, it still pales in comparison to the stories about Bill Clinton's
alleged escapades or the latest box-office revenues of "Titanic." We are,
all of us, collectively, only a teeny, weeny story at this point .
Maybe this will change in 1999 ... but by then, it will be far, far too late...
Ed
P.S. Yes, I live in New Mexico now. In my humble opinion New York City will
resemble Beirut in Jan 2000. I don't want to be there when the lights go out,
the subways stop, the airports shut down, and the less-affluent citizens of
the city realize that it could be several weeks or months before they receive
their food stamps, welfare checks, Medicare payments, and unemployment checks.
Donald Trump may not care, but another 7 million New York citizens may
discover that Y2K is not such an academic concept after all. Maybe that will
be enough to get a few more minutes of coverage on CNN...
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Edward Yourdon, 1008-A Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, # 261
Taos, NM 87571-6412 <=> phone/fax: 888-814-7605
mail: ed@yourdon.com Web: yourdon.com
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