How communicators can help break the ‘cycle of distrust’

If your audience doesn’t trust you, then nothing you sell, publish or share will really matter.

Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer found that, globally, government and media institutions are seen as divisive and untrustworthy—no surprise, given the last several years of political tumult and the lasting consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while global trust in business has increased, Americans’ faith that businesses are doing the right thing is down five percentage points from last year.

Tonia Ries, Edelman’s global executive director, calls the United States a “poster child” for what’s happening in many western-style democracies: People don’t trust their governments to protect them. They don’t trust the news to hold people in power accountable or trust businesses to actually “walk the talk” when it comes to social issues and values.

Edelman researchers have dubbed this the “cycle of distrust.”

The Trust Barometer shows that people actually want more from businesses when it comes to engagement on social issues. In most cases, respondents said, companies aren’t doing enough to address things like climate change or economic inequality—which contributes to the lack of trust.

Given this bleak snapshot of the American psyche, how can PR pros earn back trust from their audiences?