The BBC is not alone in losing public trust

I don't trust these figures.

It pays to rebuild trust, that much is true. What they should do now is pay for it from advertising revenue and have done with their poll tax! If courting high audience figures at all costs is to be their be all and end all then they should stand or fall in the market place, like all the rest!!!

I don't trust Peter Kellner and his neoliberal agenda.

There is a deep cynicism which goes way beyond this episode, much of it well founded, particularly when people think they are being lied to and/or ripped off, time and time again this proves to be true - Look at the gas prices rigging, and that's just today's story, there will be another tomorrow.

I trust the BBC more than many other institutions, including News Corp; The UN; The MoD; the current government; and pretty much every major church operating in the country

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In short, something deeper is going on, that goes beyond the individual scandals involving journalism, war, government, MPs' expenses, bureaucracy, banking and the police.

With so many scandals involving so many sectors of public service it seems to me that the public has drawn the correct lessons. No need for anything deeper; MPs, Lords, the press, the broadcasters, the bankers, top executives - pay, pay-offs, expenses, bribery, corruption.... Why do you need more? An outgoing head of the Metropolitan Police who didn't even see it was dubious to accept large presents, Tory MPs who want to play in the jungle, Chief Whips who treat the local police like dirt, Labour politicians who happily renege on their own policies for momentary gain, Service chiefs heading straight to the corporate pig trough, civil servants who cnat’ organise a sell-off of a railway industry....

Once we knew who the 'good guys' were. Do we have any ‘good guys’ any more?

They seem to have combined to create a growing impression that virtually all those in positions of leadership are cynically in it for themselves

That would seem to be the lesson of history.

One should never trust the "Ubermenschen".

Trust in god, but tie up your camel. Old Arabic saying.

I think the basic problem is that they have all lost touch with reality. They all think they can do what they like and it will never matter, but it does. They only have short term thinking. This applies to the BBC, politicians, bankers, international companies etc. It will take a long time to build up trust again.

I broadly support the BBC. What has changed for me is that I now have a plurality of news sources, some of which are specialist bloggers, so I'm more aware of the range of stories that get spiked before they can come to the public's attention. There are patterns that emerge when it comes to stuff the mainstream media won't engage with so the BBC has seemed more like the propaganda arm of the state than I used to think.
Print media needs to give up promoting opinion articles that are really just product pushes (mortgages, savings accts etc) and do more investigative journalism rather than pushing a feed from Reuters.

One should never trust the "Ubermenschen"

The BBC is not alone in losing public trust

Quite so! The legal system seems to be a complete fuck up with this Quatada fiasco. And for all of those stating that he is right to remain. How does his rights take presidence over that of my friends and family, to whom he is a danger?

In his great biography of Alexander the Great, the ancient historian Robin Lane Fox in his preface says;

"I am bored by institutions and I do not believe in structures".

He goes on to describe Alexander's astonishing feat of setting out from an obscure Greek kingdom with a small army of 32,000 men to conquer the Persian Empire, subdue India and rule over his own empire of more than two million square miles, all before dying at the age of 32.

He concludes that Alexander managed to do this by personal force of character, decisive planning, swift action and by sharing himself the hardships of his men.

None of these characteristics seem to be notable features of our present-day institutions. Maybe our political masters, captains of industry, chief constables, archbishops, director generals of this and chairmen of that might do well to reflect upon this historical precedent.,

We live in an age of dissolving certainties, which is liberating in a way. A lot of those certainties were built out of delusional fluff. It does't help that one of our nation's most successful industries is propaganda, which is deployed constantly for every cause from convincing us to drink more yogurt to vote for an exit from the European union.

I still trust the BBC not to knowingly deceive me, which is more than I can say for pretty much everything else in the world except dogs and clocks.

I don't trust these figures.

I don't believe you.

It was bad enough knowing that every company or government organisation I deal with wants to offer me the poorest products and services they can while charging premium prices and taxes - to now know that they all also want to fuck my children is just too much.

BBC news has become more tabloid like in it's focus on sensationalism, one of their reporters was told off by one of the people in Machynlleth looking for April Jones, my abiding memory of the coverage was how persistent he was trying to get local people to say that she had died.
There has been a change from simply reporting the news to a cynical ratings awareness,probably instigated by some emotionally dead, media studies graduate who knows buzzwords and corporate bollockspeak but sod all else.

The BBC plays a major part in controlling the debate and I for one am not prepared to accept "whataboutery" from one of the usual suspects they wheel out

I'll keep focused on the BBC, thanks.

" biography of Alexander the Great etc, etc,'

The only comparable with these charlitans these days is Danny Alexander the shite

A YouGov survey for the Sun

Peter Kellner, what happened?

This whole trust agenda is completely beside the point. The BBC is not an institution like the judiciary or the legislature or the police or the army, or the education system. It is a part of national life, but what matters, and matters more than anything, is output. We don't care how it conducts its business, what its procedures are, as long as the product is good. Strictly Come dancing may be produced accordign to the most rigorous ethical standards, but it's crap; War and Peace in 1972 may have cost half the entire budget but it doesn't matter, because it was fantastic. The same 'output' considerations don't apply in law, where due process is everything even if it produces outomes that our sense of 'justice' might baulk at.

So the Jimmy Saville business is no more serious than any other example of child abuse; in fact in terms of public trust - as opposed to sheer criminality - it is less serious because whereas child abuse may have happened on BBC premises, BBC premises are not care homes, whose purpose is to care for children. There should not be a problem of trust in relation to the BBC in the same way as there is a problems of trust in relation to care homes. The clue to this distinction is in the different titles.

As for journalism, it is arguable that the reporting ABOUT Newsnight exhibits even lower jouranlistic standards than the original broadcast, attributing significance to it which it does not have. Apparently the report didn't name any member of the conservative party, but somehow it is assumed that everyone could deduce from the absence of the name what the name really was. Why? because there are websites which...which what?.. which carry all manner of nonsensical gossip. That is a bit like saying that a BBC report that doesn't show body parts or human remains after a car bomb is really showing the body parts because someone else has shown them on you tube.

Think the consensus now is that if you give people power over other people they will abuse it.

The days of superstitious faith in leadership, great men, hierarchy, authority have gone for ever.

The products of institutions like government, the media etc in this country can be put into three simple words.

Lies and propaganda.

Care of the establishment, Cameron and Mr Invisible Man himself, Nick Clegg.

As Jeremy Paxman alluded..."The middle class are now the masters"......And what a load of bland, soul destroying, smug, self-centred bunch of anaemic tossers they are. They take anything with vibrancy and transform it into a bland, beige melange of mediocrity.

The sooner working class people throw this malignant shower of conformity off their backs and start singing our own songs the better.

Revolution now!!

It became obvious some years ago that none of the UK's public institutions, and very few of its private organizations, are to be trusted.

Personally, I don't believe a single word that any of them say.

"28 Gate" is a cracker. ( Go to e.g. The Register if you're not up on it ). WTF is the US Embassy doing in secret Beeb policy meetings ?

Its a crisis of the neo-liberal agenda. The same set of people who thrust this on an unsuspecting world require wars for resources, they need criminal banks to rob the poor to give to the rich, and they have the politicians in their pockets to pursue their wars and look the other way when bankers enrich themselves.

And they control the msm who sell BS to the public. Not just the printed media and TV, but also the BBC.

People are turning in droves to alternate media, sites like medialens.org, and RT in order to find out what is really going on.

The bastard broke the machine - and now we can all see the little men behind it!

My trust in the BBC has remained pretty constant throughout this whole, manufactured, storm-in-a-teacup imbroglio. Some managers/editors/journalists made some bad decisions - hardly significant, given the size and complexity of the organisation.

I don't trust these figures.

I don't believe you.

I don't believe that you don't believe, that he does not believe these figures!

I trust my dog. The only being that Ii really trust.

Even he is capable of biting me though.

Trusting another human, in particular a politician or a journo? No way.

As far as broadcasters go. ITN would be the news organisation I would trust to get the details right, ahead of Sky second and BBC third.

I trust the BBC more than many other institutions, including News Corp; The UN; The MoD; the current government; and pretty much every major church operating in the country

I second that. My belief is that many institutions ( gov included) find the BBC a thorn in their side as they are independent of market control, therefore able to operate without bias, unlike just about all else which has to accept market control.

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

A timeless quote from John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton.

Has the BBC lost the trust of people or is it just the media saying that?

I still trust the BBC...people screw up sometimes...not defending them particularly but the organisation is bigger than a few people.

I trustthem more than government and MPs refuse to fall on their swords for bigger cock-ups than Entwhistle has resigned for.

In fact, I'd rather these people at the BBC turn round and say they aren't resigning until it can be seen that MPs have the same amount of personal responsibility rather than say 'lessons have been learnt.

Give me the BBC rather than politicians every time.
Would also like to add that the stinking hypocrisy of Murdoch sticking it to the BBC beggars belief.

I think it is the shallow nature of these opinionnaire survey businesses that are to blame for all our troubles. Instead of an analysis of the very difficult nature of the news gathering process and vetting and editorial functions and reaching clear statements of facts versus opinion pieces, we get a temperature measuring commentary of the most useless kind. Mr Kellner, is this the way you live your life? It's not just them it's everywhere level of thinking...... What we expect of the BBC is great and courageous reporting and investigation with every attempt at fairness and objectivity. We like Newsnight for its range of voices and fearless presentation and it helps us to see what they are up against if we see the attempts to stop this by lawyers and politicians or powerful individuals. I am shocked to hear of the budget cuts to this programme but the continuing high salaries executives receive. Transparency is everything in this, so open up about the pressures and process and stop being timid BBC News. I pay my licence fee so you can be free.

The loss of trust in the BBC is nowhere near as great as the loss of trust in this government and the political process.

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I think that this is all quite reassuring, a sign that as a society we are finally growing up.Unquestionably trusting our betters has resulted in abuse, death and destruction, usually of the least powerful, who have never been allowed to complain. The establishment never did hold superior abilities or morals. It's taken a long time for the penny to drop.

Too true. We have lost trust in our avaricious, greedy, snouts in trough MPs.

Too true. We have lost trust in our avaricious, greedy, snouts in trough MPs

Most frontline MPs, as Oxbridge graduates with connections, could make huge six or seven-figure salaries in the private sector, but instead choose the route of making £60,000 a year as an MP.

I can understand people leveling accusations of being power-hungry against MPs, but I've never understood the "Snouts in the trough" business; MPs aren't all that well paid considering the job they do, even when you factor in their expenses. This is especially true when you consider that they can easily lose their jobs after four or five years through no fault of their own - I'm sure there are plenty of back bench Lib Dems who've done a great job in their constituencies but look set to lose their jobs because of the actions of those at the top of the party.

Easy way to regain trust.

Whether it be the banks, the tax evaders, the child abusers, the Hillsborough cover uppers or the numerous other scoundrels ripping apart the cohesion of our society we must.............

Openly Investigate, Prosecute, and Punish the guilty. Without fear or favour rich or poor alike none above the law.

Openly Investigate, Prosecute and Punish their enablers, those that covered for them those that looked the other way. Without fear or favour alike none above the law.

Remove without pension, pay off or recompense those that did none of the above but were simply too incompetent to ever have been put into such important positions in the first place. Establish a merit based system for appointments. Without fear or favour alike all treated the same.

Well if you keep feeding the mob....

If George Entwhistle has to go because of Newsnight, why is Rupert Murdoch still allowed to sell papers after Mllie Dowler?

What's that Sooty? He backs the Tories? ................

Most frontline MPs, as Oxbridge graduates with connections, could make huge six or seven-figure salaries in the private sector, but instead choose the route of making £60,000 a year as an MP.

£60,000 is a hell of a lot of money by any "ordinary person's" standards. We are obviously attracting the wrong sort of people to become MPs (or BBC executives).

COI: I am a Cambridge graduate earning well under the 40% tax threshold.

I trust my own commonsense and so should everyone else.

I take absolutely nothing at face value including YouGov and dare I say it the Guardian editorial.

Why isn't the Guardian going all out to vilify the Beeb like it did with Murdoch?.

Could it be most of its disciples are employees of enforced tax corporation?.

The sooner working class people throw this malignant shower of conformity off their backs and start singing our own songs the better.

That'll be three rousing renditions of "Knees Up Mother Brown" round the ale house piano will it?

Agree with the article.

Anyone done a poll on the loss of trust in the Royal Family lately? What with the fact that every Tom, Dick and Sally in the public eye and Scotland Yard knew about Jimmy Savile and yet this information somehow managed to evade the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles (oh, and Pope John Paul II).

The silence from Buckingham Palace in recent weeks regarding the disgrace of a decades-long honoured friend and acquaintance is notably palpable.