There was an illustration this week that the Isle of Man government's much vaunted (and expensive) jaunts to sell the image of the Island as a distinct entity in the United States and elsewhere may not be hitting all the right buttons.

A well-trailed article about a man on the Island being accused of being one of the Bulger killers was carried by prime US based International news agency UPI under the heading "Douglas England".

The Celtic League (DoI) e-mailed UPI immediately to point out that "Douglas" was in the Isle of Man and although Manx Nationalists would suggest it could be described as a colony of the United Kingdom it was not and never has been part of "England".

We also suggested that UPI, currently celebrating over a century of news gathering under the slogan "100 years of journalistic excellence", might wish to try harder in the next 100 years!

Top marks to UPI. Within a couple of hours they had changed the inaccurate lead in their article to "Douglas Isle of Man".(See link below):

(voir le site)

Now it may seem a trivial point to chase up but there is a serious point here. Manx people have been told on several occasions over the past few years that the expensive jaunts that their government representatives make to places like the US were putting the Island on the map the problem is it seems to be the map of England!

If an organisation like UPI still has difficulty reporting an issue in the Isle of Man with a degree of constitutional accuracy it seems the Manx government's campaign to develop a profile still has difficulty making its mark.

There are literally only a handful of major International News Agencies world-wide and yet despite numerous expensive jaunts around the globe and the retention of "PR specialists" they still cannot place the Isle of Man correctly - it speaks volumes!

J B Moffatt (Mr) Director of Information Celtic League

10/04/10