I first read this story in the Malay Mail
and, as an indication of how much I trust the Malaysian media, I had to
look at the primary source. This is from the website: "The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer shows an overall
decline in trust globally, with steep declines in the levels of trust in
government and business. Government is now the least trusted
institution–trailing business, media, and NGOs. Business experienced
fewer and generally less severe declines in trust, but has its own
hurdles to clear – notably that CEO credibility declined 38 percent, its
biggest drop in Barometer history. For the fifth year in a row, NGOs
are the most trusted institution."The Edelman survey of 1000 participants in each country has, certainly, has come up with some strange results. That the majority in Malaysia (a newcomer to the survey) do not trust the media is not news, but I was surprised that 47% still do! What is surprising that in Singapore, 65% trust the media (an increase from 59% last year) and in Indonesia, 80% do (a decrease from 86% last year). What is even more surprising is that in China 79% trust their media, 1% less than 2011. (I guess the cynic would say that they still dare not speak the truth for fear of being reported; censorship works at all levels.) Still, Malaysia is in the red zone with Argentina, Australia, much of Europe, Japan, Korea, Russia and the USA. (We are in good company, it appears.) Canada and Italy are in the orange 'kumsi kumsa' range, while in the media in India, Brazil and Mexico are the most trusted.
The institution that is considered most untrustworthy is the Goverment. Even in that aspect, I was surprised to see that 49% of the respondents trust the Government of Malaysia to do the right thing, and only 24% do not trust them to tell the truth. In the case of businesses only 9% of Malaysians think they don't tell the truth. Boy, are we a naive bunch. We get what we deserve. Generally though, the NGOs come out looking quite good; they are trusted in most countries.
