BBC Bashir survey feeds trust deficit

The BBC likes to see itself as the medium of record, the trusted voice of the people. Yet in the Bashir affair, the BBC failed to carry out due diligence. In the pursuit of a scoop, it failed to live up to the demands of its public broadcasting mandate.

As a result, sections of the BBC helped to promote paranoia in a very public woman who was already struggling in that regard.

Trust is precious because it represents freedom to influence others. It's also a currency under threat today, with a trust deficit developing across most major institutions, in many nations.

The Edelman communications group publishes an annual survey of 33,000 people in 28 nations. It asks the question: how much do citizens trust public institutions? It produces trust ratings for each country and sector of society.

In recent years, it has uncovered what it calls "historically low" levels of trust across most sectors and in many nations. It says, for example, that on average, before the pandemic, just 53 per cent of people globally trusted the institution of government.

Another global study showed that people began to trust their governments more when Covid first appeared. However, by January this year that boosted trust had fallen away, across the globe.

In 2020, Edelman found that three in every five Brits said they were losing faith in democracy as a form of government. That's astonishing - and blame can't be laid at the feet of politicians alone.

The media don't fare any better than governments in this studies. Last year, Edelman found that only 35 per cent of people in the UK trust media institutions. This at a time when the nation needed a national voice more than ever.

Knowing what to do about the trust deficit relies on understanding how it came about.

One of the reasons we're reluctant to trust public institutions is the divisive nature of our wider social discourse. For all the benefits they bring, both traditional media and social media often promote what I call a hot response culture.

In traditional media, people get fired up by 24/7 emotive stories and constant talk about this "emergency" and that "crisis". Meanwhile, in social media, there's no room for nuance, so hyper-emotion and over-reaction often become the norm.

All of that creates a defensive culture, where our default response to the world shifts from thoughtful trust to knee-jerk suspicion.