As the clock ticked ever closer to 11:59:59pm on December 31,1999, the world grew ever more concerned that the dawn of the new millennium would result in the dawn of disaster. Police forces around the country were tripled in case of riots; ATM machines all over the world were manned in case of panic; hospitals were doubly staffed in case of heart attacks or fallout from terrorism – and when the clock struck midnight and the world reached two thousand years – absolutely nothing happened.

No computers crashed, no bombs exploded, no lights went out, and no ATM machines stopped functioning. The “Y2K Millennium Bug” that everyone thought would wreak havoc all over the world was nothing more than a mystical and mythical creature created by the real menace of the millennium. The threat of the collapse of society as we know it was drummed up by the only real threat of the 21st century. The fear of Y2K was fueled by the people who are responsible for companies spending billions of extra dollars and governments adding thousands of extra man hours to their payrolls for nothing – the real Y2K Millennium Bug – the media.

In the beginning of society as we know it, the world was very much separate and apart from itself due to the fact that the technology we have today to keep us all connected did not exist yet. So in order to know what was going on in the North, East, West and South, a way of reporting the goings on in the different countries and communities was created to keep the world informed of what was happening – NEWS.

In its beginnings, news was nothing more than one-sheet papers reporting to the residents of a particular state the biggest news of the day. This type of “reporting” eventually developed into the major newspapers we know and rely on today. Some of the world’s most famous people were in the newspaper industry – such historical icons as Benjamin Franklin and Walt Whitman used to report the news to the people of the world day in and day out.

But sadly, over time, the idea of reporting the news was replaced with creating it, and the media’s definition of the top story was changed from an earthquake or a scientific breakthrough to a Hollywood affair and the latest superstar’s drift into depression, suicide or bankruptcy. The best example of this was a story I heard from Pete Hamill, a well-known author and journalist and former editor-in-chief of the Daily News who told me of a time he was returning from an overseas trip. Before boarding the plane, he heard on the radio that there was an earthquake in a third world country that was so devastating that hundreds were feared dead and thousands were left homeless. He could not wait to get back to New York so he could read about the quake and learn what the latest was. When he got off the plane at JFK Airport and went to the newsstand, “a major New York Daily newspaper” as he put it had as the front-page story, not the horrible earthquake, but a picture of Donald Trump with the headline, “I Wish I Dated Princess Di.”

When I decided to become a journalist, I wanted to do what my predecessors have done since the invention of the newspaper, report the news of the world to my readers. From the first article I wrote to the last article I had published in a newspaper before I joined the Giuliani Administration, I am proud to say that none of the stories I wrote were suitable for the gossip column. When I was a journalist I felt that I was part of the greatest and most important industry in the world. I thought that if I was one of the people who were responsible for telling the world what was going on, then I had one of the most important jobs in the world – but judging by the recent new and improved “top stories” on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers and the seeing the way the media scared us into believing that January 1, 2000 would arrive with doom and gloom instead of pomp and circumstance – I realize now that in the world of journalism – absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The media created such a fear of the coming of Y2K that some people removed money from their bank accounts for fear of losing it when the ATM’s crashed, others cancelled their New Years Eve plans and stayed home for fear of a terrorist act – and some even went so far as to build an emergency Y2K bunker consisting of a generator, a rifle and enough food to last for years in case of nuclear fallout.

I will admit that what would actually happen when the calendar changed from 12/31/99 to 01/01/00 was a mystery and would not be known until 12:00:00am – but the media did not give us a chance to wait and see for ourselves what would actually happen – instead, we had no choice but to expect the worst instead of hope for the best.

To the media, I say thank you for scaring the hell out of us for nothing – You’re 2 Kind.