The Buzz: Trust in Institutions Continues to Slide
April 2025
By Alan Pell Crawford
The 25th annual Edelman Trust Barometer is out, and confidence in businesses as well as government institutions continues to erode — not just in the U.S., but worldwide.
Edelman surveyed more than 30,000 people in almost 30 countries in October and November of last year, finding that public grievance (Edelman’s term) is, in participants’ opinion, making their lives more difficult. Big institutions — including the news media — are seen as serving their own “narrow interests” and not the public’s. Not even NGOs are exempt. They, too, face worrisome levels of distrust.
Last year’s elections did nothing to improve participants’ perceptions, which worsened from the previous year.
Among the takeaways:
Sixty-eight percent say leaders of business and government don’t just mislead the public — they do so knowingly and deliberately. They’re not just misinformed themselves and therefore misinform us; they lie.
Those participants with the highest grievance levels said that news organizations would rather “attract a big audience than tell people what they need to know” (75%). (Interesting, given that so many major news organizations are failing to “attract a big audience” these days and are struggling as a result.)
Employees’ trust in their employers “to do what is right” took an unprecedented fall, down from 78% to 75% over the past year, which should also set off alarm bells for CEOs. Workers also worry that their job security is threatened by several factors, most notably by globalization.
For business leaders, these findings have serious implications. Participants with low grievance levels support CEOs addressing an issue when it drives major impact (79%), improves performance (77%), protects stakeholders (73%) or addresses what a company is doing to fix a problem (72%).
Here’s the full report.
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Sixty-eight percent [of survey respondents] say leaders of business and government don’t just mislead the public — they do so knowingly and deliberately.
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