What reporters did when website went down

[Sue Darcey <sdarcey@erols.com>]

Diane:

When I first learned on Feb. 17, 2000 (as an environmental reporter
with weekly deadlines)the EPA website was going to be down for
awhile, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  I kept
mindlessly rehitting the "reload" button on my bookmarked OPP home
page site, expecting the pesticide page to reappear, like an
experimental rat expecting a food reward for hitting the correctly
colored bar on the side of his cage. This shows how seriously
addicted I had become to using the Office of Pesticide Programs'
web page.

After about two hours of this, I realized it wasn't working, and
remembered that somehow, I had been a reporter BEFORE the advent
of the Internet. In the "good old days" (pre-1997) I had retrieved
information through more traditional means i.e., by "walking a
beat" and talking to sources at EPA HQ (a lost art, I'm now convinced,
because of tightened security procedures at the agency); by visiting
the Pesticide Docket Room and sorting through comments, by reading
[paper copies] of the Federal Register every day; by calling OPP
staff on the phone, and by attending lots of pesticide meetings.

All those resources (except for the paper copies of the Federal
Register, which mysteriously went AWOL from the GPO Bookstore
shortly after the Internet became widely used by the Feds) had not
disappeared when the Internet appeared on the scene, and I soon
learned how to download stuff from the Federal Register without
going through any EPA web pages to get to it.  For one or two weeks
there, I basically parked myself in the Docket Room, and waited
there like a spider for OPP staff to drop off fresh policy decisions
and cleared comments to docket room staff, so I could snap them up
and xerox them as soon as they appeared.

The point here is that it is still possible to retrieve information
from EPA if you don't have a computer or Internet Link-up; its just
a lot easier if you are physically close to an EPA building where
they keep all the documents.

Just as one can "remember" how to cook on a stovetop if the microwave
blows up, or how to walk up to a bank teller to retrieve money from
a checking account if the ATM machine is down, it is still possible
to pick up a phone and convince an EPA staffer to send you a
document, if there is no connection to the EPA website.

Loss of the Internet was even a good excuse to get some OPP staffers
to start talking to me again -- I could always used the downed
website as a conversation opener, since EPA staff were equally
afflicted by the inoperable web site.

Sue Darcey, Pesticide Report