On October 14th 2010, YouGovStone hosted a debate on the issue of trust and truth in media and politics. The debate focused on who was to blame, how to correct it and whether the public was more complicit in the situation than had first been suggested.

The debate followed a YouGovStone survey polling almost 700 influential people from across the UK and used data from YouGov’s trust tracker of public opinion.

View YouGovStone’s summary report, along with YouGov results »

The panel, chaired by former BBC journalist Richard Lindley, took the research results as a starting point to discuss the issue of trust in our public figures today. The panel, was made up of Michael White, Associate Editor of The Guardian; Nick Davies, bestselling author of Flat Earth News, on falsehood and distortion in the media; Professor Adrian Monck, Managing Director and Head of Communications at the World Economic Forum; Anna Soubry, Conservative MP for Broxtowe; Lord Newby, former press officer to Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy's Chief of Staff during his period as LibDem Leader; and Eric Joyce, Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland.

The debate soon began to focus on the failure of the media to meet the standards expected of it, the pressure on politicians to reconcile popularity with what is right, and the role of the public in upholding standards of both groups.

Interesting points were raised across the board concerning the interaction of journalists and politicians, the lack of research and investigation by journalists, the role of human nature in politician’s actions and the possibility of incentivising good behaviour in an effort to improve the current situation.

While there was universal agreement among the panel that standards were not good enough among either group and the situation badly needed changing, a consensus developed that the public needs to use the resources available to them in a more intelligent way and force public figures to tell the truth and meet the standards we expect of them.

Findings from YouGovStone’s research report indicate that trust for all public figures was low, but particularly so among journalists and politicians. 68% of ‘influentials’ believe MPs and journalists frequently exaggerate the truth or lie to forward their own agenda. Just 31% of the panel had any sort of trust in politicians while only 27% trusted newspaper journalists to any degree. The level of trust among the public was equally as low. 36% of the public demonstrated a degree of trust in their local MP, although this fell to between 29% and 23% for the leading politicians of the three main parties. Journalists fared slightly better in some cases (60% have some level of trust in BBC journalists) but much worse in others (just 10% show a degree of trust in tabloid journalists).

Click here to listen to the debate in full »

Photos from the Event