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Edelman reports a slight uptick in people’s trust in business, NGOs, government and media, according to its 2019 Trust Barometer released today.
People though remain distrustful of government and media with each scoring 47 percent trust ratings, up three percent. They are more bullish on NGOs and business at 56 percent each.
The firm finds a 16 percent trust gap between the “informed public” (65 percent) and the “mass population” (49 percent).
Trust among informed Americans jumped a healthy 15 points to 60 percent and six points to 49 percent for the general population.
Women are less trustful than men by a 50 percent to 55 percent margin. There's a double-digit gender trust gap of 15 percent in the US, driven by women’s lower trust in business.
The Trust Barometer shows a 38 point gap in trust in media between Democrats (69 percent) and Republicans (33 percent).
Republicans, in turn, are more trustful of business by a 66 percent to 51 percent score.
The Barometer reports a 22 percent surge in news engagement among “consumers” (consume news weekly or more) and “amplifiers (consume news weekly or more and share or post content several times a month or more).
Sixty-five percent of Americans and Canadian trust traditional media, while little more than one-in-three (34 percent) trust social media.
About three-quarters (73 percent) of respondents overall worry about false information or fake news being used as a weapon.
"My employer" (75 percent) is the most trusted institution. That trust "cements the employer-employee relationship," according to the Barometer.
Nearly eight-in-ten (78 percent) of employees who trust their employer are more likely to advocate on its behalf. Only 39 percent of workers who did not trust their employer are willing to lobby for it.
That trust advantage is found in loyalty (38 percent), engagement (33 percent) and committment (31 percent), according to Edelman's 19th annual trust barometer.
Research has always been a “black box,” but with the adoption of new technologies and reduced budgets, less rigorous and even fraudulent methods have proliferated at the hands of inexperienced vendors.
Changing marketing forces continued to push back against both growth and profitability for PR agencies in 2025, according to a recently released report from Gould+Partners.
Japan has kept its position as the country with the strongest ties to the U.S. for the third consecutive year in the recently released 2026 BGR Impact Index.
The split between the growing number of sources that audiences can go to for information and the increasing consolidation at the biggest outlets in the media industry is resulting in an environment that poses significant challenges for communicators, according to a new study from Global Strategy Group.
Local journalism is becoming an increasingly rare commodity, which is having an effect on everything from civic engagement to personal loneliness to high borrowing rates for municipal loans, according to a study from Muck Rack.
