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25/08/98
BT EXCLUSIVE: Getting the word out: Experts grade the media on its Y2K coverage
by Bill Burke/BusinessToday staff
The first thing many people heard about the Year 2000 computer problem was that it was going to make airplanes fall out of the sky or spark mass rioting in the streets.
And that's the problem with much of the media's coverage of the Millennium Bug, according to several experts: it tends to lean toward the extreme.
Others, however, say that's exactly where it's all headed unless the press begins to treat Y2K as a valid issue.
It all began with an article in Computerworld on Sept. 6, 1993 by Y2K watchdog Peter de Jager. While the problem had been known about for years, de Jager's article is seen as the Big Bang in the media's coverage of the topic.
In the article, de Jager first likened the Millennium Bug to a car accident: "Time seems to slow down as you realize you're going to crash into the car ahead of you. It's too late to avoid it - you're going to crash. All you can do now is watch it happen."
Since then, the car accident metaphor has evolved into more inventive, and increasingly extreme, scenarios.
"My sense is that the media is enamored with people at the far end of the spectrum," said Tom Oleson, research director at International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. "And consequently, what has been seen in the press has been extreme situations."
Oleson said that while Y2K is bound to create difficulties, he doesn't believe it's the apocalyptic predicament some doom-sayers would have the public believe.
"The hue and cry is that everyone is going to suffer," he said. "But when you look at reality, the press is grabbing the sound-bite headlines. It's overhyped.
"I'm not going to tell you it (Y2K) doesn't exist - it does. But the press is too quick to take the word of someone who will give them that quick sound-bite."
Another shortcoming is a failure to delve deeper into the story. Investigative journalism has all but ignored the Y2K problem, some say.
"The media's treatment of Y2K has been benignly negligent," said Michael Harden, author of 'Failure is Not an Option: Declaring War on the Year 2000 Problem.' "It's getting better, but up to now it's really abdicated its responsibility of reporting on something that's going to have such an impact on our society."
The media has particularly shirked its duties by failing to press for corporate and governmental disclosure, he said.
Harden considers Newsweek's Y2K cover story as a high point on the road to the Millennium - as does Y2K Watchdog Dr. Ed Yardeni.
Yardeni is the Chief Economist and a Managing Director of Deutsche Bank Securities North America, and host of last week's Global Year 2000 Action Day - an online conference that drew more than 50,000 participants with only 500 days left until the Year 2000.
Aside from the much-heralded Newsweek piece, however, Yardeni finds little to cheer about in the mainstream press.
What does Yardeni think of Y2K in the media?
"It's inadequate," he said. "The coverage I'm seeing now is what I would've like to have seen a year ago. It's improved a lot, but it's awful late."
Yardeni said he thinks reporters have been stymied by editors who simply do not understand the weight of the problem - and then bury the story in the business and technology section.
"The press made more of an asteroid possibly smashing into the earth than it did of the Year 2000 problem last month," he said. "We need information here. I'm not claiming to know exactly what's going to happen. That's where the press comes in. It's been way too passive on this."
And where Yardeni found it inadequate, Allen Falcone, co-founder of IST Development finds it uninformed and shallow.
"It hasn't been that great," Falcone said. "In some respects, it's there, but it's superficial."
Falcone points to a recent episode of the TV show, "Crossfire," where panelists took the attitude, 'Y2K is a deadline. People meet deadlines.'
"That was a truly, truly uninformed statement," Falcone said.
Others, however, think coverage of the impending crisis has been at least adequate. Lee Freeman, vice president of Strategic Relationships at The Source Recovery Co., of Framingham, said that because the story grew out of the trade publications, it was slow in reaching the mainstream press. As a result of its beginnings, early impressions were that Y2K was strictly a technology problem.
"If the story had its genesis in Fortune, or Inc., or Forbes, it would've been a business problem," he said. "But is has taken longer for it to be adopted."
Since then, however, things have improved, he said.
"For the general press, newspapers and weeklies, the amount of coverage, depth and angles has been great," Freeman said.
One problem facing the industry is the failure to come up with a new angle.
"How often and how many ways can you say 'it's coming,' before it gets here," Freeman said. "The real problem, I think, is going to be after Y2K hits. What we're seeing now is the activity before the storm."
How the experts score the press on its coverage of Y2K:
• Tom Oleson, director of research at International Data Corp: B-minus "The press hasn't ignored Y2K, and it's brought about a greater awareness of it."
• Lee Freeman, vice president of strategic relations at The Source Recovery Co.: B-plus "Coverage has been consistently adequate and getting better all the time. But I'd like to see it above the fold every day."
• Michael Harden, author of "Failure is Not an Option: Declaring War on the Year 2000 Problem:" C-minus
"It should be a B-plus or an A, but it isn't. It's possibly the biggest story of this decade - certainly in terms of technology."
• Allen Falcone, co-founder of IST Development: C-minus "There's a lack of accurate information and a lack of attention to the issue."
• Ed Yardeni, chief economist and a managing director of Deutsche Bank Securities (North America): D-minus "It's awfully close to failing. If the press doesn't pick it up soon, it's going to be an 'F.'"