Award-winning film teaches people how to behave

GRINNELL — “Trust Me,” a documentary about the importance of media and information literacy, will be shown Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m. at the Harris Center at Grinnell College.

In addition to watching the one-hour film produced by Oscar-nominated Roko Belic, those in attendance will be able to engage with “Trust ” Impact Producer, Rosemary Smith, Grinnell College Professor of Sociology Karla Erickson and JR Paulson, according to a press release from Getting Better Foundation which produced the documentary.

“Trust Me” shows how an avalanche of biased news and misinformation is undermining trust in society. This drives fear, which promotes racism, political polarization and mental health disorders.

When fear goes up it erodes trust, according to the press release. When people don't trust each other, they don't help each other and progress stalls.

Sensational media take advantage of our survival instincts to earn more clicks and ad revenue with shocking headlines that we enable each time we share, the press release says. “Trust Me’ uses human stories, facts and expert voices to show empirical realities and the right way to consume media.

Joe Phelps founded the Getting Better Foundation in 2015. It produced the documentary in 2020. The Foundation has adopted media literacy as its weapon of choice to treat the perception gap.

GBF is helping launch media literacy curricula in schools, amplifying the positive messages and the empirical truth about this being the best possible time to be alive, the press release says.

The film’s trailer, film crew, stories, experts features and press details can be found at trustmedocumentary.com.