Grievance sends media trust to bottom: Edelman

The media has received a reputational hammering and even government is now seen as more ethical and competent in Australia, according to a long-running trust study.

The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, released today, rated media as the most incompetent and unethical institution, behind NGOs, government and business. It also found that 68% of Australians believe journalists purposely mislead people.

Media now sits below government in trust and competence (Edelman)

Edelman’s study queried around 33,000 people in 28 countries with a 30-minute online survey. There were between 1150 and 2124 people surveyed in each country, including Australia. The study has been running for 25 years.

Edelman Australia CEO Tom Robinson said the antipathy towards institutions in Australia was part of a global trend Edelman called “the crisis of grievance”.

“The idea among those with a strong sense of grievance is that business and government serve only the interests of a select few, and the system favours the rich,” he said.

“These people view the media as complicit in protecting the system.”

While Australia was riding the same grievance wave as the rest of the world, trust in Australian media was notably poor at 37%: the third-worst of those nations surveyed, above the UK and Japan. The two nations with the highest trust were China and Indonesia (both 75%), an indication that trust does not equate with media freedom.

Robinson said Australia’s low trust may in part be a reflection of the concentration of Australian media ownership.

“There’s a question mark over the role of social media in media distrust. Social media provides an environment that consistently promotes your views over the views of others … that is an element in play.”

(Midjourney)

Robinson said that while news media and all “elite” institutions might be in the doghouse trust-wise, there were certain contradictions in the data. For example, in another question, respondents rated business and NGOs as both ethical and competent.

According to the survey, government and media are both seen as unethical and incompetent. Five years ago, media outperformed government in both dimensions. That situation is now reversed, and media is now the bottom of the barrel.

“The data indicates that Australians believe media is more interested in growing audiences than telling stories that are genuinely in the public interest.”

Robinson found some light in the gloom for marketers, with opportunities around community.

“Trust has moved from established institutions to the local level, to the friends and family and people around.

“For marketers, the opportunity is clearly to integrate community into your business and brands.”

Edelman Australia CEO Tom Robinson

There is a strong correlation in the data between those with a strong sense of grievance and personal income: those in the poorest quartile are much more likely to be aggrieved.

This unhappy cohort is twice as likely to have a “zero-sum attitude”. This is characterised by the belief that – regardless of what businesses and brands say – anything which benefits the institution takes away from the individual.

“It’s ‘you gain, I lose’. This is a big challenge for marketers,” Robinson said.