David Olusoga: How to win a global battle of truth
Changes that were only just becoming perceptible 10 years ago have – with exponentially accelerating speed – become manifest and obvious. To be working in history, one of the lightning-rod subjects of our current age of turmoil, is to be thrust into the front lines of the transition from mistrust to 'grievance' – as described in the Trust Barometer.
It is true that for years, public debate has been becoming ever more hostile. Yet the really significant change has not been the increase in online aggression or the use of toxic language – it has been the growth in the unshakeable certainty – among millions of people – in the view that ideas they disagree with, or are merely unaccustomed to, are elements of an agenda that is hostile to them and their interest.
Not long ago we were reading reports by anthropologists and social scientists that warned of the growth of scepticism and polarisation. That ship has sailed. We are in a far more troubling place. Work like mine now lands in a landscape profoundly reshaped by distrust and hostility that reframes complex and nuanced issues as clear, binary struggles.
Behind this is not just the rise of misinformation but of course enormous economic transformations. Fifty years ago this nation, the UK, was by some measures the most equal society in Europe. Depending on how it is measured, the UK is now either the most unequal or the second most unequal.
Here, and elsewhere, social mobility – a fundamental aspect of the post-1945 social contract, critical to maintaining a sense of trust – has virtually ground to a halt. Those great historic shifts have helped forge an environment in which the middle ground has either gone or is going.
Even the most trusted sources are witnessing a rapid – and so far seemingly irreversible – erosion in reported levels of trust. Shared, accepted fact is gone and – most shockingly for academics – the impact of evidence in debates, the capacity of data to shift opinions, is clearly declining.
Millions are now so shuttered within an interlocking network of conspiracies and grievance that all incoming information is received and processed through a corresponding set of assumptions and pre-judgements. Grievance – in many cases – has become a near-complete worldview. One that is tribal and built on a certainty that certain people, certain institutions in certain demographics are not opponents or rivals but enemies who have gamed the system in their interests.
More rapidly than any of us could have imagined, we find ourselves in a world in which we are struggling to devise strategies by which to recover shared, empirical truth and combat misinformation. This is what Richard Edelman has called the 'battle for truth'.
It is the foundational battle upon which much else rests. The media – of course – has a central role to play here.
But this generational challenge arrives in the midst of an age of unprecedented media disruption, in which the business model of advertising and cover-price sales or subscriptions that had sustained the press since the 17th century, has been upended. Journalism has also been profoundly weakened by years of politicised attack – strategies that have their own unhappy historical precedents and against which media organisations, globally, have struggled to effectively defend themselves.
The battle for truth, the essential prerequisite struggle needed before any recovery or rebuilding of trust can take place, necessarily makes conscripts of us all. Business leaders, academics, NGOS – not just journalists.
It will require new strategies and new levels of empathy. Gen Z, for example, not only lacks trust; it is a demographic that consumes information in ways that are radically new – through lateral networks, seeking out affirmation from friends, from trusted informal sources, and from other members of 'online tribes'.
Yet while the strategies that will be needed in the battle for truth must be empathetic and tailored to new consumption patterns, the battle itself is – in one fundamental way – a zero sum game.
Successful human interactions – in business, politics and almost everything else – are built on the recognition of shared interest and the ability to reach compromise through negotiation. The search for the middle ground between two positions is essential – whether in diplomacy or among traders seeking to arrive at a market price. However, that cultural instinct for compromise is simply the wrong instinct in the coming, 21st-century battle against untruth.
This is because any compromise position located between truth and untruth remains an untruth. The compromise position between the truth of mathematics, and the man who asserts that 2+2 = 6, is the middle-ground that 2+2 = 5. But that compromise position is still untrue. There are truths and they are non-negotiable.
Not only are current truths non-negotiable, history warns us of the dangers of believing that yesterdays' untruths can be left behind. As Richard and others have argued, the event that most profoundly accelerated the rise of alternative facts, grievance and this great erosion of trust was the Covid-19 pandemic.
The unprecedented level of misinformation around vaccines, masks and lockdowns that emerged during the pandemic have profoundly rewired the relationships that millions of people have with scientific truth – never mind their attitudes towards scientific institutions. The clear, explicit and unequivocal mandates issued by governments and health agencies clashed uncomfortably with the medical uncertainties of a then-evolving virus and rapidly advancing pandemic.
When the progression of that virus was not as forecast, and when the efficacy of public health measures were found flawed – the gulf between the clarity of the restrictions imposed upon people's lives and the shifting scientific picture sparked an explosion of distrust that combusted in an atmosphere already primed with unprecedented levels of misinformation and conspiracy. The resulting crisis of trust may well prove to be the greatest legacy – perhaps – in the long run – even the greatest pathology of the pandemic.
That breakdown in trust was aggravated and deepened by all the background factors catalogued in the Trust Barometer. In an era of accelerated disparities, it was clear to all that the pandemic was not experienced equally.
Lockdown – arguably the greatest social experiment ever conducted in peacetime – equated to forced vacations and 'working for home' for those with large incomes, large houses and large gardens. To the low-paid – in small apartments – it felt more akin to house arrest.
With the pandemic years behind us, the temptation in 2025 is to imagine that the falsehoods and misinformation of that era can be left unchallenged – in the interests of 'moving on'. History's lessons are never clear or unequivocal, but the past, I would argue, suggests that untruths left unchallenged do not – as we might hope – slowly fall dormant – rather, they slowly metastasise.
The Lost Cause Myth that emerged in the Southern states during America's reconstruction era, after the Civil War – for example – did not console a defeated people, or allow wounds to heal. Those myths permitted a falsified version of history to be stamped onto the pages of school textbooks and etched into the identities of millions.
The statues of Confederate generals that were toppled back in 2020 were merely the physical manifestations of a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find a compromise between truth and untruth. The assault against science that emerged during the pandemic risks becoming a global, 21st-century equivalent of the Lost Cause.
My friend and fellow historian, Simon Schama, was recently urged on a TV discussion program by a politician to 'move on', 'focus on the future' and forget the untruths propagated during another moment of division – the Brexit campaign. Simon rightly responded that to do so would be catastrophically dangerous, 'because democracy depends upon the acceptance of truth'.
Pointing out untruths is not – as it is sometimes portrayed – to accentuate divisions – it is fundamental to any process of recovering a shared factual basis around which opinions and interpretations can revolve.
The role of historians is in part to look for parallels between 'then' and 'now', and seek to draw out warnings from past events. But it is also to attempt to recognise what is new and novel about our own age.
One aspect of life in the 2020s – one trend that I would argue needs to be recognised as novel and addressed as a prerequisite – if we are to confront misinformation and begin the process of rebuilding trust – is the 21st century epidemic in solitude. This is another trend that predated the pandemic but that was amplified and deepened by it. And solitude is the keyword here, as distinct from loneliness.
Back in the 1950s, the roll-out of television, first in the United States then around the world, sparked social panic. The great concern was that the new technology would kill conversation, undermine family life and stultify social interaction.
What happened instead was that watching television became a communal, family activity. The TV became the focal point of the home – and television shows themselves the subject of endless conversation. We are not seeing any similar communality in the age of social media and chatrooms.
Solitude – a sentiment that until recently respondents to surveys might have self-reported as 'loneliness' – is now being understood and defined as a self-imposed condition, and not one from which some are actively seeking an escape. This is especially among young men, especially in the United States and Japan – but it seems to be spreading. Social disconnectedness, the fact that information is being consumed in isolation, is clearly contributing to the erosion of trust and the spread of both misinformation and disinformation.
As the Trust Barometer suggests, trust still resides within NGOs and within businesses. It can also be found within local networks. But for sources of trust to be accessed, basic social contact is a prerequisite. So we need to be worried about the rise of solitude and social disconnection especially as some of the research on solitude suggests that not only does it undermine trust, it appears to be fostering a new form of societal nihilism – a disregard for society among people who feel a profound disconnection from it.
The battle for trust will require us to combat social disconnectedness, devise new communication strategies, through which to engage with Gen Z, and of course address the huge rise in inequality that underlies so many other disturbing changes. Lastly, it requires us to believe that this crisis can be addressed, that we have agency and the will to act. For while the past is full of moments when societies seemed to sleepwalk towards disaster, it is also replete with moments of collective action and intervention.
David Olusoga is a British-Nigeria historian, BAFA-winning broadcaster and writer. His most recent book is Black History for Every Day of the Year (Macmillan)
The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer is the firm's 25th annual trust survey, compiled between October 25-November 16, 2024 from interviews with 33,000 respondents across 28 countries, working in business, media, government and for NGOs. For more information, visit https://www.edelman.com/trust-barometer
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New European
18-02-2025
- New European
David Olusoga: How to win a global battle of truth
Changes that were only just becoming perceptible 10 years ago have – with exponentially accelerating speed – become manifest and obvious. To be working in history, one of the lightning-rod subjects of our current age of turmoil, is to be thrust into the front lines of the transition from mistrust to 'grievance' – as described in the Trust Barometer. It is true that for years, public debate has been becoming ever more hostile. Yet the really significant change has not been the increase in online aggression or the use of toxic language – it has been the growth in the unshakeable certainty – among millions of people – in the view that ideas they disagree with, or are merely unaccustomed to, are elements of an agenda that is hostile to them and their interest. Not long ago we were reading reports by anthropologists and social scientists that warned of the growth of scepticism and polarisation. That ship has sailed. We are in a far more troubling place. Work like mine now lands in a landscape profoundly reshaped by distrust and hostility that reframes complex and nuanced issues as clear, binary struggles. Behind this is not just the rise of misinformation but of course enormous economic transformations. Fifty years ago this nation, the UK, was by some measures the most equal society in Europe. Depending on how it is measured, the UK is now either the most unequal or the second most unequal. Here, and elsewhere, social mobility – a fundamental aspect of the post-1945 social contract, critical to maintaining a sense of trust – has virtually ground to a halt. Those great historic shifts have helped forge an environment in which the middle ground has either gone or is going. Even the most trusted sources are witnessing a rapid – and so far seemingly irreversible – erosion in reported levels of trust. Shared, accepted fact is gone and – most shockingly for academics – the impact of evidence in debates, the capacity of data to shift opinions, is clearly declining. Millions are now so shuttered within an interlocking network of conspiracies and grievance that all incoming information is received and processed through a corresponding set of assumptions and pre-judgements. Grievance – in many cases – has become a near-complete worldview. One that is tribal and built on a certainty that certain people, certain institutions in certain demographics are not opponents or rivals but enemies who have gamed the system in their interests. More rapidly than any of us could have imagined, we find ourselves in a world in which we are struggling to devise strategies by which to recover shared, empirical truth and combat misinformation. This is what Richard Edelman has called the 'battle for truth'. It is the foundational battle upon which much else rests. The media – of course – has a central role to play here. But this generational challenge arrives in the midst of an age of unprecedented media disruption, in which the business model of advertising and cover-price sales or subscriptions that had sustained the press since the 17th century, has been upended. Journalism has also been profoundly weakened by years of politicised attack – strategies that have their own unhappy historical precedents and against which media organisations, globally, have struggled to effectively defend themselves. The battle for truth, the essential prerequisite struggle needed before any recovery or rebuilding of trust can take place, necessarily makes conscripts of us all. Business leaders, academics, NGOS – not just journalists. It will require new strategies and new levels of empathy. Gen Z, for example, not only lacks trust; it is a demographic that consumes information in ways that are radically new – through lateral networks, seeking out affirmation from friends, from trusted informal sources, and from other members of 'online tribes'. Yet while the strategies that will be needed in the battle for truth must be empathetic and tailored to new consumption patterns, the battle itself is – in one fundamental way – a zero sum game. Successful human interactions – in business, politics and almost everything else – are built on the recognition of shared interest and the ability to reach compromise through negotiation. The search for the middle ground between two positions is essential – whether in diplomacy or among traders seeking to arrive at a market price. However, that cultural instinct for compromise is simply the wrong instinct in the coming, 21st-century battle against untruth. This is because any compromise position located between truth and untruth remains an untruth. The compromise position between the truth of mathematics, and the man who asserts that 2+2 = 6, is the middle-ground that 2+2 = 5. But that compromise position is still untrue. There are truths and they are non-negotiable. Not only are current truths non-negotiable, history warns us of the dangers of believing that yesterdays' untruths can be left behind. As Richard and others have argued, the event that most profoundly accelerated the rise of alternative facts, grievance and this great erosion of trust was the Covid-19 pandemic. The unprecedented level of misinformation around vaccines, masks and lockdowns that emerged during the pandemic have profoundly rewired the relationships that millions of people have with scientific truth – never mind their attitudes towards scientific institutions. The clear, explicit and unequivocal mandates issued by governments and health agencies clashed uncomfortably with the medical uncertainties of a then-evolving virus and rapidly advancing pandemic. When the progression of that virus was not as forecast, and when the efficacy of public health measures were found flawed – the gulf between the clarity of the restrictions imposed upon people's lives and the shifting scientific picture sparked an explosion of distrust that combusted in an atmosphere already primed with unprecedented levels of misinformation and conspiracy. The resulting crisis of trust may well prove to be the greatest legacy – perhaps – in the long run – even the greatest pathology of the pandemic. That breakdown in trust was aggravated and deepened by all the background factors catalogued in the Trust Barometer. In an era of accelerated disparities, it was clear to all that the pandemic was not experienced equally. Lockdown – arguably the greatest social experiment ever conducted in peacetime – equated to forced vacations and 'working for home' for those with large incomes, large houses and large gardens. To the low-paid – in small apartments – it felt more akin to house arrest. With the pandemic years behind us, the temptation in 2025 is to imagine that the falsehoods and misinformation of that era can be left unchallenged – in the interests of 'moving on'. History's lessons are never clear or unequivocal, but the past, I would argue, suggests that untruths left unchallenged do not – as we might hope – slowly fall dormant – rather, they slowly metastasise. The Lost Cause Myth that emerged in the Southern states during America's reconstruction era, after the Civil War – for example – did not console a defeated people, or allow wounds to heal. Those myths permitted a falsified version of history to be stamped onto the pages of school textbooks and etched into the identities of millions. The statues of Confederate generals that were toppled back in 2020 were merely the physical manifestations of a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find a compromise between truth and untruth. The assault against science that emerged during the pandemic risks becoming a global, 21st-century equivalent of the Lost Cause. My friend and fellow historian, Simon Schama, was recently urged on a TV discussion program by a politician to 'move on', 'focus on the future' and forget the untruths propagated during another moment of division – the Brexit campaign. Simon rightly responded that to do so would be catastrophically dangerous, 'because democracy depends upon the acceptance of truth'. Pointing out untruths is not – as it is sometimes portrayed – to accentuate divisions – it is fundamental to any process of recovering a shared factual basis around which opinions and interpretations can revolve. The role of historians is in part to look for parallels between 'then' and 'now', and seek to draw out warnings from past events. But it is also to attempt to recognise what is new and novel about our own age. One aspect of life in the 2020s – one trend that I would argue needs to be recognised as novel and addressed as a prerequisite – if we are to confront misinformation and begin the process of rebuilding trust – is the 21st century epidemic in solitude. This is another trend that predated the pandemic but that was amplified and deepened by it. And solitude is the keyword here, as distinct from loneliness. Back in the 1950s, the roll-out of television, first in the United States then around the world, sparked social panic. The great concern was that the new technology would kill conversation, undermine family life and stultify social interaction. What happened instead was that watching television became a communal, family activity. The TV became the focal point of the home – and television shows themselves the subject of endless conversation. We are not seeing any similar communality in the age of social media and chatrooms. Solitude – a sentiment that until recently respondents to surveys might have self-reported as 'loneliness' – is now being understood and defined as a self-imposed condition, and not one from which some are actively seeking an escape. This is especially among young men, especially in the United States and Japan – but it seems to be spreading. Social disconnectedness, the fact that information is being consumed in isolation, is clearly contributing to the erosion of trust and the spread of both misinformation and disinformation. As the Trust Barometer suggests, trust still resides within NGOs and within businesses. It can also be found within local networks. But for sources of trust to be accessed, basic social contact is a prerequisite. So we need to be worried about the rise of solitude and social disconnection especially as some of the research on solitude suggests that not only does it undermine trust, it appears to be fostering a new form of societal nihilism – a disregard for society among people who feel a profound disconnection from it. The battle for trust will require us to combat social disconnectedness, devise new communication strategies, through which to engage with Gen Z, and of course address the huge rise in inequality that underlies so many other disturbing changes. Lastly, it requires us to believe that this crisis can be addressed, that we have agency and the will to act. For while the past is full of moments when societies seemed to sleepwalk towards disaster, it is also replete with moments of collective action and intervention. David Olusoga is a British-Nigeria historian, BAFA-winning broadcaster and writer. His most recent book is Black History for Every Day of the Year (Macmillan) The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer is the firm's 25th annual trust survey, compiled between October 25-November 16, 2024 from interviews with 33,000 respondents across 28 countries, working in business, media, government and for NGOs. For more information, visit
The Guardian
23-01-2025
- The Guardian
Edelman sounds alarm over 'descent into grievance' in Davos – but whose fault is that?
High up in the Swiss Alps this week, an influential public relations executive issued a stark warning to the world's corporate and political elite. Public trust is 'plummeting', Richard Edelman declared, prompting a global 'descent into grievance'. For the 25th year, the PR agency Edelman released its annual 'trust barometer' at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The survey asks respondents in dozens of countries if they trust governments, NGOs, media outlets and corporations. Edelman promotes this exercise as an objective gauge of public trust. A foundational tenet of the survey – and the advice Edelman derives from it – is that it measures whether people trust elite institutions and those who lead them. But the barometer might be similarly revealing in reverse: as a reflection of what corporate and political elites think of ordinary people. 'I just think that's a fundamentally flawed premise,' Edelman, the agency's CEO, told me in an interview on Monday. 'I mean, we survey ordinary people, and we say what we find. And in this case, we found 20% of them highly aggrieved.' Edelman says 'economic fears' are to blame for this 'age of grievance'. But, from the post-election market 'Trump bump' to the giddy enthusiasm of billionaires excited to see fellow billionaires running the US government, these economic fears do not necessarily extend to the executive class. 'I don't want people to presume that this Trump presidency will be bad for PR,' Edelman told PRWeek after the election. 'I think there will be deregulation, lower taxes, and budgets will get loosened up again.' The intersection of such prosperity amid grievance presents Davos-goers with a combustible dilemma – to which, Richard Edelman wrote in Fortune, 'economic optimism' may be the solution. I asked the CEO what, exactly, he means. Optimism could be an outcome of policy changes, like helping workers unionize or raising corporate taxes to fund public services. But optimism could be the product itself: a message, marketed and sold to the public, that things aren't actually so bad. 'For me, optimism is rooted in reality,' Edelman told me. 'And we need to make people feel as if they can actually have a bright economic future. It has to be higher wages, reskilling, affordable products … I want optimism not to be some vague notion. I want it to be tangible, based on observed reality.' Optimism as an antidote to distrust is not a new prescription from the firm. In 2023 Edelman suggested companies and media outlets move away from scaring people about climate change – and instead 'invest in optimism' and 'lean into solutions', among a number of ideas. The climate crisis certainly needs solutions. Edelman, though, has earned millions working for fossil fuel companies and industry groups like the American Petroleum Institute (API) – including running 'astroturf' campaigns that helped defeat, well, solutions to the climate crisis. I asked Edelman how he squares the company's recommendation for climate solutions with its work for oil and gas interests seeking to undermine public support for legislative and regulatory climate solutions. 'Look, on the API – in that period of time, when Obama was president, there was a whole move for energy self-sufficiency,' he said. It was 'more drilling, more fracking, all that. We were doing PR as part of that. It wasn't to slow down regulation. It was to talk about that.' (According to PRWeek, Edelman worked for API as early as 2005. API's tax filings show it paid Edelman more than $75m in 2008, the year before Obama took office.) I asked Edelman, does he think his company and its peers in the communications industry could be contributing to public distrust. 'I take our reputation really seriously,' he said. 'And we have a very high bar for work. Not just who we work with, but what we do. And I just want to reassure you that we could take a lot of other clients, and we don't. And we make choices, and we're proud to work with the people we work with.' During an Edelman webcast last September, Liba Wenig Rubenstein, director of the Aspen Institute's Business Roundtable on Organized Labor, offered executives one concrete idea for building trust and instilling optimism: engage in good faith with employees' efforts to unionize. Rather than seeing unions as a threat to profits or control, Rubenstein suggested that executives interpret them as an earnest expression of workers' commitment to their company. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion At the end of the event, Edelman did not mention unions. Instead, he encouraged executives to show employees 'that there's value to being optimistic.' 'That it's not just hope, but it's actually possible …' he said. 'We need people leaning in … We want them to advocate for us, stay with the company, and be positive on social.' (Two months after the webcast, Edelman laid off about 330 people – more than 5% of its workforce.) I asked Edelman what he made of Rubenstein's suggestion. 'Each industry, each company has to make the decision about unions,' he replied. 'The basic premise I want to go back to is, we need people to feel as if they have better wages and that they have affordable products and things like this. So I'm not going to opine about unions. That's up to each one of our clients.' The trust barometer defines 'grievance' as 'a belief that government and business make [respondents'] lives harder and serve narrow interests, and wealthy people benefit unfairly from the system while regular people struggle.' Edelman disputed the suggestion that his firm's remedies for these grievances could be intended simply to convince people that things aren't as bad as they think. 'I really want to challenge that,' he said, insisting that 'this is not some head-fake in a basketball game'. The CEO pointed to what he called 'a real problem of lack of facts – agreed facts.' 'We don't have a good information system,' he said. 'We have a 'mass-class divide'. We have a sense that the political system doesn't work. Questions about capitalism. So we've pointed out all those things … our truth to the Davos crowd.' Speaking truth to the Davos crowd matters. But Edelman is among this crowd's higher-profile members. His PR agency depends on persuading clients – some of whom are also part of this very crowd – that Edelman can persuade people to trust them. The Davos crowd benefits disproportionately from economic and political systems that many ordinary people have rightly concluded are not for them. And the Davos crowd has a disproportionate say over whether solutions to this conclusion advance beyond optimistic promises that carefully avoid interrogating who has power in society and who does not. The 'global leaders and changemakers' passing through Edelman Trust House this week might find it unsettling to consider their own culpability in this 'grievance-based society'. For everyone else, however, the unease on the slopes in Davos this week is an invigorating reminder that people – even those without a World Economic Forum badge – still have power. That's a reason to be optimistic.
Reuters
19-01-2025
- Reuters
Economic grievances fuel support for hostile actions, Edelman global survey shows
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Economic fears have escalated into grievances among 60% of people, with many believing hostile actions such as violence can be necessary to bring about change, according to a global poll by communications firm Edelman. The survey of the 33,000 respondents across 28 countries showed severe levels of distrust in government and business, with many respondents viewing them as serving the narrow interests of the wealthy while regular people struggle. It was released as the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos was set to kick off under the theme "Collaboration for the Intelligent Age." Four in 10 respondents approved of hostile acts to bring about change, including violence or threats, online attacks, intentionally spreading disinformation and damaging property, the survey showed. Among respondents aged 18 to 34, support for hostile actions was even higher at 53%. The results are "profound," said the firm's CEO Richard Edelman. "We've now seen a slide over a 10-year period from fears, to polarization to grievance," as the public becomes more anxious about the cost of living and job security tied to artificial intelligence, he said. Discontent stems from a lack of hope for the next generation, class divides among low- and high-income people, distrust in leaders including government officials, business executives and journalists, and confusion over credible information, the survey showed. In Western democracies, respondents' outlook for their countries being better for the next generation dropped to severe lows of 9% in France, 17% in the UK and 30% in the U.S., the survey found. "Moving back from a grievance-based society will require a cross-institution effort to address issues like information integrity, affordability, sustainability, and the future of AI," Edelman said.
