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Media and Y2K: What if a REAL crisis happens and no one shows up

© Deborah Lagarde

For publication Friday, January 7, 2000; © 2000 by Deborah Lagarde.

Without actually saying the appropriate words, let me say that those y2k doomspreaders who whipped up all the fear and doubt that the world would end on Jan 1, 2000 in order to make a profit ought to exposed as the charlatans they are--or should publically apologize, not for being wrong, but for spreading all that fear and doubt without checking out and reporting that preparations were going okay--it seems--after all. I don't care if they were wrong--I care that they acted irresponsibly.

The most serious aspect of this spread fear and doubt is simply that if any terrible event that any of these folks warn about, actually does happen, no one will believe them, that these people will be considered as the little boy who cried wolf, and when the terrible thing happens, no one will be prepared, lives will be ruined, people will die, etc..

Dare say I we were prepared if y2k glitches did happen, in all sorts of ways, not the least of which the fact that I use a Macintosh. So that if an imagined terrible event actually happens, we will probably be prepared for that.

Which leads to my point: if a hypothetical terrible event does happen, will the media--both Establishment and especially aternative (since it was the alternative or politically incorrect organs that spread most of the fear and doubt about y2k)--be willing and able to properly prepare folks who have by now wearied from having put up with months of y2k warnings, to no avail? Are media consumers, now pumped up with the notion that having weathered the y2k non-event everything will be fine, letting themselves in for a big pitfall when a real crisis comes about?

And, now that y2k has (pronounced by CNN and the like) "gone away": if, as some still insist will occur, there are longterm effects like credit card glitches, bad bills, failure of govt. welfare and disability payments and the like, will the mainstream organs fulfill their duties and report them, having since pronounced them a dead letter?

Maybe, just maybe, along with truth in media, we also need more responsibility in media?

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