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Good morning.

Recently, trust has taken a bashing - both trust in the media and also in other people. This week, the Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that only about a third of us trust the news, with a significant decrease in trust over the past four years. Worryingly, data shows we also distrust other people more and are increasingly polarised in our views.

Trust is society’s glue and it’s corroded when people are uncertain and anxious - understatements for what many of us might be feeling particularly now. It’s hard to trust other people when we don’t see each other in 3D. Even the more introverted of us rebalance ourselves when we’re in the physical presence of others, when even our hearts start beating at the same pace. We need to be physically near each other to maintain trust, and so this time of physical separation is a delicate one.

Good news though, because we can build trust. As consumers, we deserve transparency and accountability in response to falsehoods or hidden bias in media organisations - whether traditional outlets or social media companies, especially as most people in their 20’s get about ⅔ of their news from their social media platforms. This depletes our capacity to value other views and instead, reinforces our own.
The Hebrew language offers an accurate way of articulating how we feel when we encounter different views. The Hebrew for tolerance, ‘savlanut’, from the word, ‘sevel’, means pain. To build trust we have to be willing to experience the pain of someone else disagreeing with us without branding them a bad person. We have to be willing to express doubt and admit to being wrong when we are. Challenging ourselves, others and media outlets may be painful but we can’t shy away from this challenge if we’re to rebuild trust.

Trust is depleted by anger and anxiety. Psychology has shown that these are two sides of the same coin; anger is often an expression of anxiety. This connection enables us to rebuild broken trust by halting our immediate, angry response and instead ask 'what’s their anxiety?’ We can bolster trust by turning a concern into asking a question and not assume ill intent or an attack. When God threatens to kill the inhabitants of Sodom, Abraham does not accuse God of callousness, but instead builds trust by challenging God with a question, ‘Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ he asks.

Personal disagreements and different media bias are inevitable, but our individual approach to the issue of trust is in our hands.

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