Edelman Trust Barometer Reveals Record Grievance Levels in 2025
The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer has revealed a deepening crisis of trust, with 60% of respondents reporting a moderate to high sense of grievance towards institutions and growing economic disparities. Trust levels have hit concerning lows in major Western economies, with Japan, Germany, UK, US, and France showing the least trust among the world’s top economies, while developing nations like China, Indonesia, and India maintain higher trust levels. The report identifies four key factors driving this grievance: diminishing hope for future generations, a widening mass-class trust divide, declining faith in institutional leaders, and increasing difficulty in distinguishing credible information sources. After 25 years, the Edelman Trust Barometer remains a must read report and a truly useful resource.
Muck Rack Expands with Ruepoint Acquisition
Muck Rack has acquired Irish media intelligence company Ruepoint for an undisclosed sum. The purchase significantly expanding Muck Rack’s service capabilities and European presence. The acquisition, which closed on December 31, brings approximately 500 European customers and 100 staff members to Muck Rack, increasing its total workforce to 400 people. The deal enables Muck Rack to roll out new services including curated monitoring, executive digests, and enhanced insights for PR and communication strategies.
Medianet and TVEyes Partner Down Under
Fresh from launching a brand new media monitoring platform in Australia, Medianet has announced a partnership with TVEyes. The collaboration enables Medianet clients to access Australian TV and radio monitoring across national and regional stations. It combines the content with print, online, and social media sources in Medianet’s platform. (The news comes following Meltwater’s move to Kinetiq from TVEyes to supply broadcast monitoring, as we reported in November.)
Cision Appoints Guy Abramo as Chief Executive
Cision has announced the appointment of Guy Abramo as its new CEO. Abramo was previousulyt CEO at HireRight, where he successfully led both an IPO and a take-private transaction. The appointment, backed by Cision’s owner Platinum Equity, signals a strategic move to strengthen the company’s market position and drive innovation in the media intelligence sector. We’ll be keeping an eye on how this appointment shapes Cision’s market strategy in the year ahead.
ShopMy Secures $USD 77.5M Series B Funding
ShopMy, the influencer marketing technology platform, has raised $USD 77.5 million in Series B funding, elevating its valuation to $USD 410 million from $USD 80 million in less than a year. The investment round, co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, comes amid predictions of 14.2% year-over-year growth in influencer marketing spending for 2025. You might have thought that the sector would have cooled by now, but there appears to be no stopping influencer management tools.
Media Intelligence Product Updates
Here are some of the product announcements that caught our attention this month:
CoverageBook has unveiled its PR benchmarking report for 2025, which reveals that high-authority media coverage is increasing dramatically, with sites like MSN, Yahoo!, Forbes and Daily Mail (Domain Authority >90) now representing 15% of news URLs in 2024, up from just 1.5% in 2020. The study of 6 million global news pieces also uncovered interesting social sharing patterns.
Onclusive has expanded its AI capabilities with the launch of ‘In Brief,’ a new AI Sense-powered feature in its Onclusive Social platform that automatically generates summaries of social media conversations and identifies key narratives, helping communications professionals save time while ensuring comprehensive social media intelligence.
AMEC has joined the Global Data Quality initiative, a collaborative international effort launched in 2023 that brings together major research associations to tackle data quality risks. The organisation, representing over 200 member organisations across 86 countries, will contribute its expertise in media intelligence and insights, with Converseon CEO Rob Key leading AMEC’s involvement in addressing quality challenges in unstructured data analysis and AI-driven insights.
Reputation has unveiled a major platform expansion featuring three key innovations: Local Search Insights for enhanced Google listing engagement, Item-Level Feedback for granular product performance tracking, and AI Reputation Manager – a groundbreaking tool designed to help businesses understand and shape their brand perception in AI-powered search results. The upgrade, backed by a new future-ready infrastructure built for real-time data processing, aims to help companies bridge the brand perception gap by leveraging advanced analytics and AI technologies.
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