To talk up Guernsey, or to do it down? It’s a difficult one.
No story has had the long-running impact so far this year than one we ran at the tail end of January – ‘Guernsey’s economy is stagnating’.
The Institute of Directors pegged a debate on it, as it ‘revealed’ that Guernsey’s GDP contracted by 2% in 2023 while Jersey’s increased by 7%.
We say ‘revealed’ as States officials knew the information had been out there for a while. But it was only when it made the newspaper that it made ripples.
It demonstrates that there is power in the Press. But are we wrong to ‘talk us down’, or right to flag problems and failures which need to be addressed?
The past couple of weeks have seen the announcement or completion of a number of private investment deals. There are still some believers out there.
We’ll come back to that point this week, seeing if Guernsey can harness its power of place to tell the story that it really wants to get out there – that this is a great place, capable of doing great things.
As was said this week about another IoD event: ‘If we tell each other bad, negative stories all the time why are we surprised good things aren’t happening?’
Will the story Guernsey chooses to tell define our future?
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