Tackling the Y2K story

It's a brooding gray day, and we're on location in a muddy field outside Columbus, Ohio, with reporter Cathy Donahue of NBC affiliate WCMH. Donahue has introduced us to a woman she calls Peggy, who is telling NewsChannel 4 viewers how she and her husband are preparing for the Year 2000 computer problem. The couple have sold their investments and most of their belongings, and Peggy's husband has quit his job to build a tiny cabin on the secluded site and stock it to self-sufficiency with several months' supply of food. "We want to be in a more safe and secure location," Peggy explains.

- Report aired on WCMH

March 11, 1999

What a story! Over the coming months, climaxing at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, a hidden time bomb could cause computers to crash. Lights go off, transportation grinds to a halt, financial markets collapse, and maybe some Russian ICBMs are let loose. Details at 11!

Then again, maybe nothing much at all will happen come next January 1, save, perhaps, a New Year's Day hangover. What's all the fuss?

Covering the Year 2000 computer problem is a formidable challenge for journalists in our sound-bite age. The Y2K story is, after all, essentially a drawn-out saga about thousands of anonymous technicians burrowing through billions of lines of software and tiny look-alike microchips in search of digitally deficient date commands that need fixing. Ho-hum.

But there may not be many stories as important to demystify. As John Koskinen, the Clinton administration's point man for the government's Y2K remediation efforts, told an audience of journalists at a Freedom Forum symposium: "The less the public knows, the more people naturally assume the worst."

The press has the responsibility to address some big questions - and the answers may change from day to day: Will bank automated teller machines work? Will it be safe and convenient to travel over the New Year holiday? Will prescription drugs be available? Will local, state, and federal governments be able to provide basic public services?

In fact, Y2K isn't just one story but three different ones.

First, there's the technicians' race against the calendar to prevent the complex interdependent information systems from crashing.

Then there is the story of the contingency plans that businesses, public utility companies, and governments from county seats to Washington are drawing up to minimize Y2K disruptions that do occur.

Finally, there's the all-important story of how communities and citizens react to these fast-changing developments. A worried public, made anxious by both hype and indifference in the press, could overwhelm the contingency planning by hoarding supplies or liquidating investments. Edward Kelley Jr., the Federal Reserve Board governor who's coordinating the Fed's efforts to protect the banking business against the millennium bug, told the Freedom Forum meeting that the risk of public panic is a bigger potential problem than any disruption Y2K failures are likely to cause.

For journalists, there are traps and snares everywhere. Some key sources are less than candid. Business executives and public officials involved in the fix-up efforts have the greatest stake in maintaining the confidence of their customers or constituents and giving their story a positive spin. At the other extreme, says Barnaby Feder, who covers the Y2K beat for The New York Times: "It's so easy to do stories on the wackos."

Fortunately, more and more media organizations are expanding coverage. (Some, from ABC to The Associated Press, are even limiting or eliminating vacations on or around December 31.)

CNN has increased its Y2K coverage from several spots per day three days a week to five days a week. CNN looks for local Y2K solutions and describes how they can be applied around the country. In one segment, CNN correspondents and residents in Urbandale, Iowa (population: 26,902), grappled with how to allocate scarce public revenues to address competing - and compelling - Y2K risks in the town's emergency services, government offices, and public works departments. CNN will return to Urbandale throughout the year to follow up on progress, new problems, and lessons learned.

The Washington Post has increased Y2K coverage from just five stories in 1996 to more than 100 in 1998. The Post's Y2K beat team, led by Stephen Barr and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, is covering the story on many levels, reporting on the progress (or lack of it) in addressing Y2K vulnerabilities at the federal agencies and contingency planning by local governments in the District and its suburbs.

In San Antonio, the Express summed up the city's Y2K readiness in a seven-- part series in January. And, at The Boston Globe, a team of forty reporters, under assistant managing editor for special projects John Yemma, asked spokespersons for each of the Bay State's major public-service agencies, utility providers, and big employers the same four questions:

Will your organization's mission-critical computer systems function properly on January 1, 2000? What percentage of your systems are Y2K compliant now? By what date will all of your Year 2000 remediation work be completed? Have you developed contingency plans to minimize disruptions if they occur?