Richard Edelman says the U.S. is living in an “era of information bankruptcy” as leaders lie to the public, which views media outlets as politicized and biased.
“The result is a lack of quality information and increased divisiveness,” he said in releasing the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer.
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Edelman believes the Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol and the fact that only a third of Americans plan to get the COVID-19 vaccine highlights the dangers of misinformation. Fifty percent of Americans believe the country is in the grip of a “cold civil war,” according to the Barometer.
Business (61 percent) replaced government (53 percent) as the most trusted institution since the mid-May update of the Barometer.
The record-breaking time to develop the COVID-19 vaccine and ability to shift to a work-from-home environment sparked the upswing in business trust.
“Guarding information quality” at 5.8 percent ranks as the top action that can “increase likelihood” of trust. That’s followed by embracing sustainable practices (5.7 percent), robust COVID-19 health and safety response (4.8 percent), driving economic prosperity (4.7 percent) and long-term thinking over short-term profits (4.6 percent).
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The Barometer gauged the trust levels of Biden and Trump supporters following the November election.
It found a 19 percent overall trust gap between Biden voters (53 percent) and Trump backers (34 percent).
Both factions recorded the same level of trust in business (55 percent), but split on trust in government (45 percent for Biden, 30 percent for Trump).
There was a yawning gap (39 percent) in trust in the media. Fifty-seven percent of Biden voters trust the media, compared to 18 percent for Trump people, which was a 15 percent plunge from the 2020 Barometer update.
The number of stakeholders and issues that affect almost every business decision is turning CEOs into “corporate diplomats," according to a report from Edelman.
Almost two-thirds of the chief communications officers (65.9 percent) surveyed in a new study from Page say that the scope of their job has expanded over the past two years.
Ask any practitioner or academic, and they’ll tell you that not only is public relations one of the least understood professions in the world, but it also has a lingering odor about it, a stigma, a bad reputation. This has, and will continue to be, a problem for the field. But have you ever asked yourself why, and when, these anxieties about PR became widespread, and if, or how, they may be justified?
Zara is the most recommended brand in the U.S., according to a new survey conducted by research data and analytics group YouGov.
In a healthcare environment suffering from what often seems like too much information, doctors have become just one item on a menu of patient choices—and not always the most significant one, according to a new study from Edelman and the Yale School of Public Health.
