Is Davos Still a Forum? Or Just a Stage?

In this week’s The Week UnSpun, the panel takes on three high-stakes stories where influence, identity, and global perception collide.  

First, the team unpacks the latest flashpoint over Greenland, where the U.S. talks security, Denmark talks sovereignty, and Greenland quietly navigates the space in between. But is this really about narrative control, or something deeper, as David suggests, like the importance of alliances over authorship?  

Then, the conversation turns to Minnesota, where deadly ICE encounters have sparked a communications crisis over trust, legitimacy, and who gets to define the truth.  

Finally, the group turns to Davos, joined by 18-year World Economic Forum veteran Joanna Gordon, who lifts the curtain on how the global summit has evolved, and whether it still lives up to its founding ideals.  

Listen For

2:03 Can Greenland Strengthen Partnerships Without Losing Autonomy?
3:25 Are Small Nations Heard? Or Just Spoken For?
6:43 Is the Real Crisis in Minnesota About Trust?
11:45 Has Davos Lost Its Way in the Age of Attention?
15:41 Does the World Economic Forum Have a PR Problem?

Guest: Joanna Gordon

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Chapters

• 2:02 Can Greenland Strengthen Partnerships Without Losing Autonomy?
• 3:24 Are Small Nations Heard? Or Just Spoken For?
• 6:41 Is the Real Crisis in Minnesota About Trust?
• 11:44 Has Davos Lost Its Way in the Age of Attention?
• 15:40 Does the World Economic Forum Have a PR Problem?

Transcript

Farzana Baduel (00:04):
My name is Farzana Baduel and I am joining you from London.

Doug Downs (00:07):
My name’s Doug Downs. I’m in Canada’s Rocky Mountains.

David Gallagher (00:10):
And I’m David Gallagher in my hometown of Round Rock, Texas. And if it’s okay, I’m going to introduce our special guest, Joanna Gordon. For reasons it will be obvious later. She’ll say why she’s here and why we’re so happy to have her. But this relates to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos next week. But I’ll say, Joanna, thank you. As I was saying before the show, you were one of the very patient guides when I was more active with the Forum, and I still benefit from some of the relationships you helped me create then. So glad you could join us from Paris, right?

Joanna Gordon (00:43):
Exactly. Delighted to be here and get to contribute to some of the discussions today. So thank you.

Farzana Baduel (00:50):
Welcome, Joanna. Now this week seems incredibly packed as is every week. And Doug, let’s start off with Greenland.

Doug Downs (00:57):
And every week, the three of us, we try actively to keep Donald Trump out of the news headlines that we’re trying to cut, right? How do we keep him out? And yet we’ve got him in Greenland and we’ve sort of got him in Minnesota as well. Tensions around Greenland have escalated, right? After renewed US political statements, arguing that American control of the island is necessary for national and international security. Denmark and Greenland rejected the idea outright, restating that Greenland is not for sale and that its future rests with its people. Now in parallel, Denmark and its allies have increased military visibility in the Arctic, including deployments and exercises around Greenland framed as routine, but they’re clearly symbolic. NATO is positioning these moves as collective defence, not escalation, where diplomats search for a way to manage security concerns without reopening the sovereignty question. From a public relations perspective, this is a story, in my opinion, about who gets to define security and how language makes power sound reasonable.

(02:03):
When the United States speaks, it uses the calm voice of protection. Denmark and Greenland answer with a tougher word. Sovereignty, autonomy. The first battle is the frame. National security is meant to end debate by sounding technical and inevitable. Denmark and Greenland, their words are very clear. We’re not for sale because once you argue terms, you’ve already accepted the idea. In comms, this is the rule. Never speak the dialect of the opposition. Use your own words. Another note from a comms perspective is alliance signalling. The military moves are not just strategic, they’re communicative. The message is reassurance. We’re present. We’re united without validating the claim that unilateral action is necessary. The risk is fine, but real. If your response looks reactive, you strengthen the story you’re trying to contain. And the final chapter is Greenland’s balancing act. Greenland does not want to keep the United States out.

(02:59):
It wants more presence, more partnership, more investment. Greenlanders want America. They just don’t want to be American. The communications risk is real. Asking for support can be misread as surrendering agency. Now the lesson here is sharper than it looks. You can invite a partner in, but Farzana, the moment the story shifts from partnership to possession, you lose the authority that you were trying to strengthen.

Farzana Baduel (03:25):
Well, what’s interesting here, Doug, is although Greenland is the centre of the story, it’s pretty much treated as a backdrop in terms of narrative control. So you’re hearing what the US have got to say. You’re hearing what Denmark, NATO, other sort of countries. And of course, what happens in the real world is your ability to control the narrative has real world impacts. I think it’s about narrative authorship. And so you’re occasionally getting some sort of cuts through with Greenlanders talking about what they want, but very little. I mean, the conversation is predominantly between NATO, Greenland, and Denmark.

Joanna Gordon (04:06):
Yeah. I just want to comment. You’re talking about their voice, but they’re only 50,000. It’s probably 50,000 people in Greenland. So how can they have a strong voice versus how many voices in the US? What’s the population?

Doug Downs (04:21):
Yeah. It should be more polls and surveys. I’ve seen streeters in media, but David, that’s not enough nearly to cover.

David Gallagher (04:30):
Yeah. I don’t know if it comes down to per capita share of voice, but I take your point. It’s a small country. Honestly, I don’t think this comes down to narrative authorship though. I don’t think Greenland really has a standalone narrative. And in fact, I think if they try to express this as some sort of referendum on their sovereignty, they’ll lose. And I think that splitting away from Denmark and from NATO would be exactly the wrong thing to do. This is a moment for solidarity, for alliances, for partnership. I think it’s the only way Greenland can advance its best interest is in partnership with its partner, with the Kingdom of Denmark and with the NATO allies. I also think that if they, for a moment, show a sliver of separation from their partners, it’ll be exploited by the Trump administration. See, they don’t really belong.

(05:23):
They don’t really want to be places. Last thing I’ll say is, I don’t think the US sounds reasonable in this. They already have effective military control of Greenland. They already have agreements with Denmark in terms of how mineral rights and future resources could be managed. So I think this comes down to a personal issue for whatever reason for Donald Trump. And I don’t think it sounds that reasonable on the world stage. We’ll hear more about this, I guess, next week, Joanna, when the president travels to Switzerland. But I think this is bigger than Greenland sovereignty.

Doug Downs (05:56):
David, you’re in the hills of Texas right now. You flip on the TV, you pick up a newspaper. Is it Greenland? Is it Minnesota? Is it Iran? What’s the lead story in there?

David Gallagher (06:06):
Yeah, this is a strange thing. So as you know, I’m usually based in London, so I see everything through a UK filter. I think that actually affects my social media feeds. Sitting here in purple Texas, but red Williamson County, just on the edge of the Hill Country, you get a different view. Greenland is not really registering right now. And I don’t think that’s a surprise. A lot of times geopolitical affairs don’t dominate local American news, probably much the same as the rest of the world. So no, Minnesota is front and centre for social media feeds and for the news.

Doug Downs (06:43):
Yeah. And I see it. If I flip around at night, I’ll go CNN, MSNBC, Fox, right? And the tensions in Minneapolis, Minnesota, they’re playing big on Fox News, big time. And obviously CNN. Well, they’ve spiked again after a second shooting involving US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. On Wednesday, an ICE officer shot a man in the leg during an enforcement stop after the man allegedly tried to flee and attacked the agent with a shovel and makeshift weapon. This incident comes just one week after another ICE agent fatally shot Renee Goode, a 37 year old mother, during an operation in the city, sparking a lot of protest and sharp criticism from local officials. Demonstrations, of course, have continued with community members demanding accountability and transparency, while both state leaders and the federal government remain sharply at odds over enforcement tactics and investigation control. To me, this is a communication story about legitimacy under pressure and about who the public believes when force enters the frame.

(07:51):
Federal authorities insist their actions are lawful and necessary. Local leaders and communities are saying something different, that the process itself has lost all credibility. The first tension is, again, narrative control. Federal statements focus on enforcement and self defence while city and state voices focus on transparency and accountability. And both sides are speaking past one another now, and in that vacuum, trust drains fast. The fight is not only over facts, but over who gets to define what’s happening. The second tension is investigation and authority. By keeping probes tightly federal, officials may be protecting procedure, but they also signal distance. When communities feel shut out of the truth finding process, suspicion becomes the story. Legal caution might be rational, but it rarely leads to confidence. And the final tension is escalation. Federal deployments and hard national rhetoric raise the temperature, but local rhetoric does that too. When mayors and governors use language that paints the other side as illegitimate, it can harden camps and sharpen the street mood.

(09:03):
In a crisis like this, everyone with a microphone owns a piece of the deescalation, but law enforcement carries the heaviest burden because policing is not just about force, David, it’s about community consent. The strongest signal is not dominance. It’s restraint that people can see.

David Gallagher (09:25):
Well, I agree with everything you said, maybe even until that last point in terms of what the strongest signals are. And I’ll save that for later, but I think this kind of boils down to what most news boils down to right now. It’s not really about facts. It’s not even about the sequence of events. It tends to be about feelings. And I see two feelings coming to the fore. On the local side, it’s really fear. And there is a fear, and some could say a legitimate fear, about a secret police demanding documentation and shooting people in the face who may not be able to produce it or are perceived as not being fully compliant. And on the other side, it’s anger. And I think there’s a lot of anger directed towards people who are protesting what they see as a legitimate mission from a federal agency to address illegal immigration.

(10:14):
And those two things are irreconcilable. The fear and the anger are almost, as you say, talking past each other. So I think that’s one thing to acknowledge. I think the second thing to acknowledge is where does this go from here? And I think this is a tinder keg. I really do. I think the one mitigating factor is that it’s happening in the dead of winter. And I think these protests could be much larger, much more difficult and lead to much worse outcomes if it weren’t happening in the winter. Last thing I’ll say is just kind of how it’s being framed. And we went from a dehumanisation of undocumented workers, which has really produced a lot of anger on one side. That zone has spread out now to dehumanising protestors. And the language being used, comply or die, is one that kind of feeds the fear on the other side.

(11:01):
So this feels like a vicious cycle. I don’t know how it gets deescalated, but I’m watching it with real concern, real anxiety.

Joanna Gordon (11:09):
Don’t you think it’s going to be deescalated next week? He’s going to get, Trump’s going to have attention on him in Davos, just throwing that out there. Distracted.

Doug Downs (11:16):
Maybe.

Joanna Gordon (11:16):
Distraction. Yeah.

Doug Downs (11:18):
Yeah.

Joanna Gordon (11:18):
Yeah. He’s showing up in Davos next week. So there are 65 heads of state and he’s the only one we’re talking about and everyone is waiting to hear what he’s got to say. And everyone sort of falls in line when he’s there. So he can come off as being the strongest leader and that’s going to give him power to go back home and say, the world’s listening to me and doing what I’m asking them to do. Should be the same back home.

Farzana Baduel (11:45):
Well, I wanted to pull on Joanna’s thread in terms of Davos actually, because that’s my story for the week. And as PRs, I mean, people like us, we’ve been working for year in, year out trying to get media engagements for our clients, stakeholder engagement. I mean, it is super efficient for our CEOs to fly out there and meet various different people from political, government, business and so forth. And it’s just from a diary management perspective, it’s really useful to physically be there. So you don’t have to always try and coordinate diaries of incredibly busy people who are constantly travelling. But what I wanted to bring Joanna in is because, of course, Joanna’s a proper Davos insider. Joanna, tell us how many years have you been going to Davos and working with them in the team, working with others outside on how to navigate it, and what has changed over this incredible trajectory, this vantage point that you have with being in that Davos world for so long?

Joanna Gordon (12:47):
So scarily enough, it’s going to be my 18th Davos, and I would say things have changed a lot. Yes, the Forum was started with really this idea of bringing a multi stakeholder platform, bringing people who have influence or who have, be it from the business world, civil society, government together to address the world and solve some of these bigger problems together. They still all come to Davos now, but they’re not there to talk anymore amongst themselves. I think, and if anybody’s in comms and PR and helping companies on their Davos strategies and World Economic Forum strategies, it’s about how do I use this platform because so many people are there, but just to get my message out and broadcast it out. And I think that’s a real reflection of where we are in the world. And it’s sort of unfortunate because I think the Forum is trying to get back to that dialogue.

(13:50):
The theme of this year’s annual meeting is a spirit of dialogue, but the sense we’re getting is I’m showing up and I’m going to try and use it as much as possible to get my own personal message out and my own personal agenda taken care of.

David Gallagher (14:10):
Joanna, you and I were speaking about, and again, you were so kind to me with a few others in terms of shepherding me around the Congress Centre and kind of the periphery. The periphery is now the zone now, right? I mean, that’s where a lot of the action happens. There’s staged events. I think there’s something like 700 side events. So I’m saying this as someone who has benefited from my own relationship with people like you at the Forum, big fan of its overall mission, but does this new emphasis, this kind of attention economy focus, does that diminish the Forum’s brand or impact in some way, or does it just change it in a different direction?

Joanna Gordon (14:44):
I think there are really different Davos experiences. And I’m sure more and more people are hearing about, or seeing people saying, I’m going to Davos. I’m going to the World Economic Forum. Going to Davos, which is just the name of a town in Switzerland, yes, definitely they’re going to Davos. Are they going to the World Economic Forum? Most of the people are not. They are on the sidelines. And what has happened is that a huge amount of media companies have started organising sideline programming. Every huge amount of people with their own agendas are creating their own events and claiming it is the World Economic Forum and where these exchanges are happening.

Farzana Baduel (15:29):
Joanna, do you think that Davos actually has a bit of a PR problem that is maybe considered as too elitist, too out of touch, a bit of a talking shop, and not really an opportunity to learn and listen and lean in?

Joanna Gordon (15:41):
I mean, I definitely think the Forum still has at its premise and its goal to bring together people around the table. I think more and more people don’t want to be at the table. This is one of the few places in the world that can bring together people from so many around the world. Switzerland is so considered neutral and it’s not a… And you’ve got business, you’ve got civil society and you’ve got government and there are not any other places in the world that can bring these type of people in the room. But as you pointed out, there’s a festival around and I would ignore… I don’t think the festival gives you a sense of what’s going on, but that is definitely a comms machine and not a reflective thought leadership and exchange that should be happening in the Congress Centre.

Doug Downs (16:43):
Joanna, thank you so much for joining from Paris.

Joanna Gordon (16:46):
Thank you all for having me.

David Gallagher 

Good luck next week.

Joanna Gordon

Thank you.

Doug Downs (16:48):
As always, thank you to our superstar producers, Emily Page and Solomon Ibeh. Appreciate all your work. You are the grease in the machinery. The Week UnSpun is a co production of Curzon Public Relations, Folgate Advisors, Stories and Strategies Podcasts. Recordings on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Give them a listen, a like, a share. And of course, our final thought for the week. If you’re someone who naturally takes control, it takes courage to soften when your instinct is control. Control feels safe, softness feels exposed, but the moment you choose curiosity over certainty, you shift the entire emotional landscape of the room. That’s not control, but that is leadership. Take care of yourself, take care of those around you. Have a great weekend.