What inspired you to create Trust Me?
Before managing Getting Better Foundation (GBF), my husband and I owned Eagle Radio Group, licensed to serve dozens of markets throughout Michigan. Coined the “Voice of Northern Michigan, we broadcast local news, sports, and events, played music, and supported organizations working in those communities for good. We continued to practice the fairness doctrine long after the FCC did away with it. The Fairness Doctrine mandated broadcast networks devote time to contrasting views on issues of public importance. It meant addressing the tough questions of the day, but also addressing solutions to those problems.
“Solutions journalism is an approach to news reporting that focuses on the responses to social issues as well as the problems themselves. Solutions stories, anchored in credible evidence, explain how and why responses are working, or not working. The goal of this journalistic approach is to present people with a truer, more complete view of these issues, helping to drive more effective citizenship” (Wikipedia definition). When we sold our family business, we relocated to Montana to live closer to our four adult children.
Montana is where I met Joe Phelps, CEO of GBF. Joe believes it’s a great time to be alive, but the vast amount of negative and biased news is skewing people’s perception of positive progress. This leads to mistrust in our government, in our schools, and in each other.
Joe started collecting good news stories back in the early 2000s and founded the non-partisan GBF in 2015, adding a world-class advisory board including members like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, Claremont Graduate Professor Paul Zak, Skeptic Mag’s Michael Shermer, International Trauma Institute’s Gina Ross, Center for Media Literacy’s Tessa Jolls, LA Times award-winning journalist Martha Groves, Black Girl Film Camp President Jimmeka Anderson, and International Council 4 Media Literacy’s Belinha DeAbreu. Joe and I agreed that media literacy is a crucial weapon against mis- and dis-information, mistrust, polarization, and mental health disorders.
We partnered with like-minded organizations like the Knight Foundation and News Literacy Project to support educators who wished to teach media literacy – empowering students with resilience and critical thinking skills.
The vision to produce a film that would bring awareness to people’s need for media and information literacy was born from a burning desire to expand resilience – to empower people globally with the ability to conduct civil discourse. By becoming “curious, not furious” (Renee Hobbs, Media Ed Lab), people’s ability to overcome their differences to consider other opinions, allows them to collaborate on solutions to the world’s problems. Problems like conflict and war, environmental damage, healthcare disparities, poverty, and famine can be unraveled with collaboration.
Why do you believe media literacy is crucial in today's digital age, and what impact can it have on society as a whole?
People have dealt with media “ill-literacy” since the advent of the printing press, right? We learned how to consume propaganda and the advances in print news, radio, then television. What’s different today is the speed, quality, and quantity of information since the advent of the internet. This “firehose” of information is being studied by psychologists and physicians, educators, and journalists, as a leading cause of anxiety, depression, suicide-ideology, and polarization (PEW Research).
At GBF, we’re partnering with the RAND Corporation and the Center for Media Literacy which research the efficacy of media literacy in reducing hate speech and violent behaviors. We are hoping by showing Trust Me to a wide audience of students, teachers, parents, and community members, followed by workshops where we teach the “7 Standards for Quality Journalism” (News Literacy Project), people will have a greater understanding of their capacity to become responsible citizen journalists… to be a part of the answers to peace and unity.
We call this project “Alert Montana!”. It is a grassroots effort to empower citizens with the skills to share credible, trustworthy, and important information when communicating with others and making decisions affecting their family’s health, finances, relationships, and politics. “Alert Montana!” would serve as a pilot program that can be scaled nationwide to other states i.e.“Alert Colorado!”, “Alert New York”, etc.
The film features emotional stories and expert interviews. How did you select the individuals and stories to include, and what impact do you hope these narratives will have on viewers?
Exposing viewers to powerful messaging using stories engages their empathy. It opens their hearts and minds to think “What does it feel like to be you?” (Michael Shermer, as featured in Trust Me). When a parent watches how misinformation read online by another parent leads to the near loss of their young son, they understand how reading unproven medical information could lead to the loss of their child. They learn how a father is now serving prison time for believing a conspiracy theory, and how schools like Durango, Colorado’s Mountain Middle School are improving performance by limiting cell phones in class. Minds are then open to hearing from experts about how they can avoid the same thing from happening to them.
While researching the true stories in Trust Me, we found online manipulation and a lack of news literacy to be a worldwide phenomenon. There was no shortage of crises stemming from media “ill-literacy”!
We hired Oscar-nominated Roko Belic (Wadi Rum Films) to direct these stories. Roko, producer Caree Davis, and cinematographer Matt Clarke then filmed forty hours of footage around the world. The trick was determining which of the stories packed the most punch, creating the most emotion, with the most impact. That’s when we invited school librarians, teachers, principals, parents, and community members to screen rough drafts of the footage. They voted on their favorite and most poignant segments.
At GBF, we are fortunate to have access to a world-class advisory board that formed the basis for the expert psychologists, journalists, and media literacy professionals highlighted in Trust Me. With the wealth of stories and professionals who appear in Trust Me, we first envisioned a docu-series! With guidance from Jurassic Park’s editor, Michael Fallavollita, we were able to narrow down the segments to first a 90-minute feature, then edited for PBS into a 60-minute film and 15-classroom-friendly video clips.
What key messages or skills do you hope viewers will take away from the film, especially regarding how they consume and share media?
We hope viewers will become aware of their need for media literacy to lessen polarization and violence, protect their mental well-being and resilience, and to recognize how we’ve all become citizen journalists. How sharing of mis and dis-information affects their credibility, their trustworthiness, their mental and physical health, and that of those they care about. We hope audiences will support media literacy and civics in all schools – not just those districts blessed with motivated educators or budgets to support media literacy curriculum.
We hope lawmakers will recognize media literacy as a cross-partisan initiative, consider supporting media literacy standards and funding. Themselves becoming “curious, not furious” – enabling more bicameral progress into the problems affecting our nation. We hope they and their constituents will utilize media literacy to lessen the polarization, mistrust, and hate that is creating unrest.
How do you envision Trust Me being utilized in libraries and schools?
We envision and work with libraries and schools wishing to empower students with critical thinking skills. My favorite part of my job is hosting a screening of the award-winning film, followed by motivational Q&A with students – I love seeing that “ah-ha!” moment in their eyes! Then, we coach teachers how to implement media literacy curriculum into their classrooms using News Literacy Project’s K-12 Curriculum, Collegiate or Parental Discussion Guides.
Ideally, a screening the evening prior to student assemblies, we’ll show Trust Me to community members and parents. Parents are comforted with the knowledge that their child’s school is doing all it can to see they are educating the whole child. They are then happy to discuss and instill the film’s messaging at home, using value statements contained in News Lit’s Parental Discussion Guide. This further fosters community cohesiveness.
Given the current media landscape, what steps can individuals and communities take to become more discerning consumers of information? How can films like Trust Me contribute to this effort?
We are grateful to other filmmakers and experts who are bringing awareness to people’s need for media & news literacies. When we first started researching organizations interested in countering the onslaught of sensational news, we were hard-pressed to find other like-minded partnerships. I believe the tide is changing. A decade later, we now go to conferences where there are 1000s of experts working on it! Thanks to the U.S. State Department, Trust Me screens at Embassies, Universities, Schools, and American Corners globally. The film was gifted to 40,000 U.S. High Schools in 2021 thanks to a grant from the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation.
Wider recognition and distribution of Trust Me before the 2024 elections will enable people to learn more about which candidates align with their values, and which nutrition or healthcare solutions are best for their mental and physical well-being. By becoming more credible sharers of information, people will have a vested interest in solutions to their community’s problems. They will trust and help one another more.
Looking ahead, how do you see the future of media literacy evolving, especially with advancements in technology and changes in the media landscape? How do you hope Trust Me will influence this evolution and encourage positive change?
Ohhh, I think we all have now had experience with online manipulation. People do not like learning they’ve been manipulated. With advances in technology, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and bad actors using online manipulation to cause societal disruption, it’s going to get trickier to protect ourselves.
Once people realize they have tools and resources at their disposal to protect themselves and their loved ones, they will evolve to consume and share media more responsibly. We hope Trust Me will be that bridge that brings awareness to people’s need for media literacy in time to rebuild trust, lessen polarization, and preserve democracy.