The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I have long suspected both our dailies of needlessly presenting the most negative possible headline for a story about the Bahamas.

Yesterday’s Guardian Business featured the following somber headline: “IMF: No Pickup in Bahamas GDP Growth Rate, No Slowing”.

Anyone who keeps abreast of what is happening in the world outside The Bahamas would immediately (and correctly) have tied this story to the Fund’s announcement a few days ago that world growth had been revised downward, to 3.2 per cent. Regional (Latin American and Caribbean) growth, meanwhile, had been predicted to contract for a second consecutive year. Despite the revisal, The Bahamas is expected to maintain its 1.5 per cent growth rate.

Nowhere in the Fund’s statement was any reference made to a hope or expectation of increased growth, and certainly not in the region.

Hence, the headline’s reference to a “pick up” seems merely to have been made in order to negate it, compounding the negative sense of the headline. The second part of the headline (“no slowing”), though correct, is therefore minimalised, while it is in fact the only element of the headline that reflects the actual story.

Here is how an objective (and not misleading) headline for that story might have read: “IMF: Despite Global Slowdown, The Bahamas Continues Mild Growth, Bucking Regional Contraction”

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

Apirl 13, 2016.