If you’ve been following the Edelman Trust Barometer over the past few years, you’ve known that this the value of this ingredient has had impossible to predict. The 2012 Trust barometer did, however throw some surprises.

Government is the least trusted institution. What else is new?

Trust in the media actually rose in the past year! (That has to be impressive, considering that two years ago, a Pew Research study found it to be at an all time low, with Americans who were aghast with inaccurate and biased news.). Gains were in India, UK, the US and Italy. Which is counter intuitive, considering how the Murdock scandal tainted much of the British media last year. Not surprisingly, social media, recorded the biggest gains in media trust.