-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/17527.html?wnpg=1 <A HREF="http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/17527.html">Political News from Wired News</A> ----- Feds Plan Y2K Spin Control by Declan McCullagh 3:00 a.m. 26.Jan.99.PST WASHINGTON -- Fears of Y2K panic have prompted the federal government to begin quietly preparing a media strategy designed to assuage public fears of blackouts or other potential infrastructure failures. John Koskinen, assistant to President Clinton and chairman of the White House's Y2K council, has entered into discussions with a public-relations firm, Wired News has learned. The firm has recommended conducting awareness surveys and honing a "stay-calm" message based on the results. The campaign is designed to thwart widespread hoarding and extreme reactions to Y2K, including the possibility of bank runs and stockpiling-sparked shortages. Fifty percent of Americans plan to take extra cash out of the bank and one-third say they'll stockpile food before the new millennium, according to a recent Time Magazine and CNN poll. Officials have suggested other strategies, such as asking broadcasters to donate free air time and creating a media-advisory group that would work hand in hand with the federal Y2K council to soothe anxious Americans. During a December closed-door meeting held by the council at Federal Reserve Board headquarters, attendees bemoaned negative media coverage and suggested staging "community cooperation" events to calm jitters and spur positive press coverage, a participant said. Jack Gribben, a spokesman for the council, stressed that no decisions have been made. "Both communications and the issue of communicating with customers and constituents were discussed." He said that "we have had discussions" with at least one public-relations company, but "there's nothing firm at this point." At the council meeting, the Federal Communications Commission's Marsha MacBride and the US Postal Service's Richard Weirich reportedly suggested a federal project to monitor the public's reaction to Y2K. An Agriculture Department representative complained that the agency's most frequent telephone inquiry has become: "How many cans of food should I stockpile for my family?" Radical responses to Y2K have become a top concern among Washington insiders such as Koskinen. Last year, he warned, "We need to avoid creating panic and precipitous, counterproductive activity." The head of the Senate's Year 2000 committee has echoed that sentiment. "Even if the Y2K problem is solved, the panic side of it can end up hurting us as badly," Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said in December. When an industry-advisory group met for the first time last Thursday, members fretted over how to prevent public overreaction to Y2K. The members of the group include incoming Securities Industry Association chairman Roy Zuckerberg, United Airlines chairman Jerry Greenwald, North American Electric Reliability Council chairman Erle Nye, and Scott Anderson of the American Bankers Association. Officials also are growing edgy about releasing sensitive information. Last May, the National Security Agency classified a Defense Department Y2K database as "highly sensitive," prompting the military to yank it from the Internet. In response to a Senate request, the General Accounting Office last fall compiled reports on each industry's Y2K readiness, but has not yet released the complete results to the public. Some agency Y2K officials even worry that the bulky quarterly reports published by the White House's Office of Management and Budget every four months contain too much information. Even though Koskinen said as recently as two weeks ago that "our strategy is based on the premise that the public has great common sense and will respond appropriately when they have the necessary information," the Clinton administration and Congress have taken steps to close meetings. A bill that Clinton signed last fall was widely touted by the White House and a bipartisan group of legislators as a way to limit inappropriate Y2K liability. But a key provision bars the public from attending meetings of the Y2K council and its subcommittees. The Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act says the federal open-meeting act "shall not apply to the working groups established under this section." "There's a certain necessity, to a degree, in having private meetings. We want to encourage people to be candid about their progress, and opening the meetings up to the press and the public doesn't always encourage candor," Gribben said. The federal public-relations strategy is still evolving, and the cost of a national advertising campaign may turn out to be prohibitive. But Koskinen has already decided to spotlight success stories among federal agencies. At a press conference in December, for instance, Clinton hailed Social Security's Y2K progress. "The Social Security system is now 100 percent compliant with our standards and safeguards for the year 2000," Clinton said on 28 December 1998. But two weeks later, few reporters showed up to cover the Defense Department's admission that it missed its self-imposed repair deadline. Just 1,673 of 2,300 mission-critical computers were fixed by the end of 1998, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre said on 14 January. But he predicted, "We will have about 94 percent of our systems fixed as of the end of March." Koskinen's job is made more difficult by a plan still under consideration, which would have the government advise Americans to make "reasonable" preparations, such as buying candles or asking their doctor for an extra prescription in late 1999. The American Red Cross already has recommended similar steps. Other possibilities include asking large companies to head off "mass hoarding" by reassuring their customers and increasing public confidence that community emergency services such as 911 will be ready if they are needed. The government recently launched a toll-free hotline, (888) USA 4 Y2K. So far, the largest percentage of callers say they're more worried about banks than other sectors of the economy. 9 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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