Minneapolis/St. Paul. The national magazine Utne Reader and Utne
Reader Online will distribute to Utne’s 260,000 subscribers the Y2K
Citizen’s Action Guide with the magazine’s January/February 1999
issue. The Guide will also be sold as a supplement to the magazine
for $4.95 in bookstores, newsstands, and other outlets on December
29, 1998.
The Y2K Citizen’s Action Guide is the one-million-reader
magazine’s response to the growing concern that individuals and
communities are not prepared for the potentially enormous and
unknown global challenge that will play out on January 1, 2000.
‘The Year 2000 computer problem is not just a technical problem, it
is an opportunity for citizens to get together with their neighbors
and prepare themselves, their families, and their communities for
the challenges that may lie ahead,’ said Eric Utne.
Over the next year the media will play a crucial role in
determining the impact of Y2K on millions of people. That is why
Eric Utne, the Editor-in-Chief of Utne Reader, decided to
publish the Y2K Citizen’s Action Guide and distribute it to
citizen groups, opinion leaders, business executives,
non-governmental organizations, and the media.
A dozen leading experts on Y2K preparedness contributed to the
guide, including Margaret Wheatley, Larry Shook and Paloma O’Riley.
The booklet contains chapters on: What Public Citizens Can Do About
the Y2K Crisis; Questions for Public Officials; Community
Organizing/What You Can Do; Individual Preparedness and Y2K
Resource Checklists; and The Psychological Challenges of Y2K.
‘We need to know the Y2K status of our transportation and fire
fighting systems. We need to develop contingency plans for possible
failures in power grids, in communications systems, in water and
food supply networks, and in solid waste disposal,’ said Charles
Halpern, President of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and a
contributor to the guide. ‘This is a time for each of us to take
responsibility not only for the people who live close to us, but
for those vulnerable people and countries who so often go unseen
and neglected. In this highly interdependent world we have created,
their problems are, in fact, our problems.’
Alarming though some Y2K predictions may be, all is not doom and
gloom. According to Utne, there’s a silver lining. ‘As we prepare
for Y2K, something surprising and quite wonderful is going to
happen. We’re going to get to know our neighbors. Our communities
will become safer, more intimate, more resilient, more neighborly
places to live. Y2K offers us a tremendous opportunity to rekindle
genuine community.’
The Y2K Citizen’s Action Guide is also available online
at . Utne Reader is the nation’s leading digest of
alternative ideas. Launched in 1984, the bimonthly magazine has a
paid circulation of 260,00 and has been nominated three times for
the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. Cafe Utne was
named the nation’s most active online discussion community by the
Forum One Report in May 1998.
To set up a press interview for the Y2K Citizen’s Action Guide
please contact Mitra Milani at Utne Reader 612-338-5040 ext. 47
