Revealed: how top PR firm uses ‘trust barometer’ to promote world’s autocrats

Edelman, world's largest public relations company, paid millions by Saudi Arabia, UAE and other repressive regimes

Public trust in some of the world's most repressive governments is soaring, according to Edelman, the world's largest public relations firm, whose flagship trust barometer" has created its reputation as an authority on global trust. For years, Edelman has reported that citizens of authoritarian countries, including Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and China, tend to trust their governments more than people living in democracies do.

But Edelman has been less forthcoming about the fact that some of these same authoritarian governments have also been its clients. Edelman's work for one such client - the government of the UAE - will be front and center when world leaders convene in Dubai later this month for the UN's Cop28 climate summit.