People on the left have been reaching out to me for years, saying that they feel like the mainstream media has become politicized, is biased in favour of the left — and they no longer trust it to report the news fairly. Now, a group of international scholars has published an interesting research paper that addresses this dynamic. It finds that when people perceive institutions to be politicized, they lose trust. Even if they happen agree with its politics.
Azim Shariff is a professor and Canada 150 Research Chair of moral psychology at the University of British Columbia. The pre-print paper we discuss today is titled “Even When Ideologies Align, People Distrust Politicized Institutions.”
Azim Shariff is my guest, today on Lean Out. Transcript to come for paid subscribers.
On Politicization and Trust