Izabela Branković, Executive Director of the Media Association: I am looking for trust

This is not easy for me to say, but I’m afraid that trust has become a planetary resource that is disappearing before our eyes. It melts like a glacier, evaporates like water and is becoming rarer, just like air.

Izabela Branković, Executive Director of the Media Association

Somehow, I have been thinking more and more about trust. No, I did not fall under the influence of the recent elections (I decided a long time ago not to cast my vote in the ballot box, but to let it reach as far as possible and travel as long as possible). I’m doing the same thing now for my children because I know that my parents did the same for me. That is why I try my best to trust trust. I admit, having that faith is hard for me. I can’t reach further than my family. That certainly makes me happy, but by no means carefree…

Who can we really trust?

The pessimist in me says “no-one”, while the optimist claims that I must first trust everyone in order to trust someone. Both “I”s are right, but, again, I don’t know which one to believe. I am confused and worried.

I guess that’s also a matter of trust.

I still wonder how laudatory doctoral authorities sometimes collapse because of a few sentences, spoken or not spoken. Regardless… I admit I have always especially appreciated doctors because I know that I am not cut out to become one even if I lived three lives and to be able professionally stand up to such a challenge. Even when I go in to have an ordinary check-up, I am dead serious as I wait for the doctor to tell me the truth and for the truth, regardless of what it may be, to be based on trust.

I am afraid that in this disgusting viral time, the truth is sick along with trust. And there is no vaccine available – neither for the virus, nor for the truth, nor for trust.

On top of all that, I read about Novak Djoković’s heartfelt appeal, as he struggles with trust. If he found himself in such a situation, what and how should we (defend) ourselves? Here, trust is built over years and decades, and it is lost in games and sets. The No. 1 tennis player in the world is asking for forgiveness. Is that possible!? Yet, nobody found it fitting to ask who did Novak trust that he would be able to play safely at the tennis tournament in Belgrade.Who actually played Djoković?

Who gambled on his trust?

He knows that and he’s not the only one.

Thinking about trust, I can’t ignore the election results, which testify to ever greater and stronger trust. And all of this is happening in a time of complete distrust: towards everything and everyone. What an insane contradiction! I am not disputing the credibility of the election results, but I am not sure that they are the result of trust. They, somehow, look more like a belief to me… Trust and belief have almost the same connotation but mean something completely different.


“Finally, it pains me so much to see how some media have distanced themselves from the trust. Trust has ceased to be valid. Actually, not only ceased to be valid but ceased to exist altogether”


Trust was the first lesson of my old-school journalism teachers. Mutual trust towards readership, viewers and listeners…

Trust is just disappearing before my eyes!

This is not easy for me, but I’m afraid that trust has become a planetary resource that is disappearing before the eyes of all of us. It melts like a glacier, evaporates like water and is becoming rarer, just like air. It seems to me that the world has betrayed nature, but also that nature is preparing a revenge for the world. Revenge might sound too rough of a word, but it is reasonable. As the righteous Djordje Balašević softly sings – “order is order, but anger is anger.”

People, the figurative rows of almond trees, are disappearing from our streets in all continents.

So, trust is, in fact, the keyword that everyone must understand. Regardless of how it is written and pronounced: Trust, Confiance, Fiducia, Doveryat ‘, Confiar, Vertrauen…

Stevan Ristic, President of the Management Board of the Media Association and Izabela Branković, Executive Director of the Media Association

Or in which language of the world!

Trust is, indeed, more than words – it is a natural instinct and human need. I would like to end this on a hopeful note. I remember a great story about a young writer complaining to Mark Twain that he no longer had confidence in his literary talent.

“Do you sometimes feel like that too?” he asked the famous writer.

“Of course,” Twain mused. “Once, after being a writer for 15 years, I felt like I had no literary talent whatsoever.”

“What did you do then? Stopped writing?”

“Well, no. I couldn’t. I was already famous.”

I will never be famous and I made my peace with it. I just find it hard to believe that in my world of anonymous people, trust has become irrelevant and meaningless. Here I am, even now, calling and searching for it. 

And I can’t do it alone! Someone, please help me!

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