We all know a person who likes to say “trust me.”
And the wise among us know that request can be the surest sign of someone who isn’t to be trusted.
But we have that basic human need to know whom and what to trust – and it’s never been harder to do, according to a recent report.
We live in “A World of Distrust,” which is the title of the annual Trust Barometer, a study done by Edelman, an international public relations and marketing firm. They’ve been doing the survey for 18 years.
People are asked basic questions, like: “How much do you trust (an institution) to do what is right?”
(Full disclosure: the firm hosted an event in Atlanta and I was a member of the panel to discuss the findings.)
It’s hard to read the report and feel good about the state of our country and the world, not to mention the media business. But as I dug through the information, not all of the news is bad.
Here are some highlights from the report, which surveys people around the world:
- The average trust in institutions (business, government, non-government organizations, media) has fallen around the world. That trust is higher among the "informed public," which the survey defines as ages 25-64, college educated, top 25 percent of household income and a "significant" consumer of news.
- Trust has experienced a "crash" in the United States. Trust in government has declined by 30 points in one year. Trust in media is down 22 points.
- And that constant partisan fighting we see on cable TV each night? It shows up in the survey this way: 27 percent of people who voted for Donald Trump trust the media; 61 percent of Hillary Clinton voters do.
- There has been a 22-point drop in trust of government by Clinton voters since the election.
- Media represent the least trusted of our institutions around the world now, hardly a coveted position. Media are distrusted in 22 of 28 countries. And where are the media rated highest? China.
- In the United States, media lost five points of trust in one year, down to just 42 percent of people who trust us.
- But, as I said, not all of the news is bad. Journalism itself gained five points, while "platforms" lost two points. What does that mean? "Media" is a broad definition, covering traditional media (your newspaper), online-only sources, search engines (Google) and social media (Facebook).
- Trust in traditional media gained two points.
- Social media was a big loser, dropping 11 points.
Of course, that’s the bit of good news to which you might expect a newspaper editor to cling. And so I will.
People in the survey know that what they see on social media is less reliable than what we print or publish on our website. So all the recent ruckus about Facebook? Mark Zuckerberg probably ought to realize that it’s more than a few U.S. Senators who are concerned about how Facebook affects our democracy.
Ninety percent trust their “favorite” brand, and for nearly a quarter of them that favorite brand is a newspaper.
That information agrees with what you tell us in our own research: that you trust the AJC more than national news organizations.
And the Edelman survey seems to indicate that the closer someone is to an institution or organization, the more they will trust it.
That’s important because in the trust survey, people acknowledge that it’s growing increasingly difficult to tell if information presented as news is actually produced by legitimate organizations.
One of the members of the panel was Steve Schmidt. Now an executive with Edelman, he was a senior advisor to Sen. John McCain during his presidential bid, and a member of the White House staff during the George W. Bush administration.
He believes the United States was founded on powerful ideas. These are trust, faith, belief and truth – and all are crucial to a democracy.
“The situation is getting worse” when it comes to trust, he said.
He said he’s concerned that the nation has devolved into a political system that doesn’t rely on persuasion, but rather incitement of voters.
I asked him about whether I should be encouraged by somewhat improved perceptions of journalism and traditional media.
He was wary.
He believes that people may be “responding if they like the media they watch.” And he warned of people wanting to have “subjective truth” reinforced to them.
And so I asked him what the editor of a local newspaper should do in response – especially given the AJC’s commitment to investigative and accountability reporting.
“Inform the public without fear,” he said. “Do everything in your power to be on the level.”
He said he believes that tribal politics has “corrupted reality,” and it’s our job to “go long on reality” and “short on alternate reality.”
Our country faces a “powerful current” that feeds distrust, and we need to fight that current, he said.
“In a democracy without objective truth, you can’t have accountability.”
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