Top 10 institutions that now have a bad reputation

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The world is a constantly changing place. Those who have power and a good reputation today can just as easily loose it tomorrow. Historians can point out many examples throughout history. Even the greatest empires such as the Romans, Persians, and Mongols eventually fell. The first step that many of these authorities and power take to loosing their power is by loosing their credibility and reputation. With that in mind, check out below for the top 10 institutions that now have a bad reputation.

#10: The French Presidency and Francois Holland

The president of a country should hold a position of great power and respect. In a democratic country, the people have given them the great honor and duty to represent the country on the international stage. However, sometimes, the public as well as private actions of the president can tarnish the name of the office. In addition, their actions can help lose credibility to the office’s image and power. Francois Holland, the former President of France, did exactly this.

In 2014, Closer, a French gossip tabloid, printed pictures of Francois Holland’s affair.^[1]Gala – François Hollande et le scooter, une grande histoire d’amour More specifically, the pictures showed the mistress arriving at a house, followed shortly by the President’s body guards. Shortly after, Holland arrived at the residence driving a scooter. Before this incident, public opinion of Holland was not very high. However, afterwards, is bad reputation got even worse. His infidelity made him a joke to the French public, and helped tarnish both him and the office of the President.

#9: The bad reputation of big media today

Main stream media used to be highly respected. They were the voice of authority and news for everyone around the world. People would read the newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch the television get trustworthy news about what was happening around the world. However, today, “fake news” and political media dominate the mainstream media. As such, it has a bad reputation and lost most of its credibility.

One of the best examples of this was Fox News’ coverage of the 2012 election results. During the election of Barack Obama won in Ohio. However, during the election, Fox News continued to claim that the state would go for Mitt Romney.^[2]Newstatesman – Video: Jon Stewart describes Fox News election night coverage as “crisis on bullshit mountain” Fox even went ahead and blamed mathematics for Mitt Romney’s loss, refusing to believe that the people of Ohio would vote for Obama instead.

#8: The European Union

Several European nations created the European Union in order to build a unified and standardized rule of law that applied to nations within its borders. It became the ruling government for much of Europe. However, this doesn’t always work. The needs of people from one country don’t always correspond with those from other countries. Furthermore, the European Union function much like a business, with a lot the negative things that come with it.

As such the EU has lost a lot of credibility and gained a bad reputation in the sights of the rest of the world as well as from those within its borders. A popular example of this is Brexit. One of the biggest things that has caused the European Union to lose its credibility is its internal corruption. Maria Bamieh, a former prosecutor for the EU mission in Kosovo EULEX, revealed that the commission, which was supposed to fight corruption in Kosovo, was actually receiving bribes.^[3]EIJC – Lost Credibility When she tried to bring this up to internal investigators, the EU commission fired her.

#7: The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the largest single sect in Christianity. There are over 1 billion people in the world who call themselves Catholic. As the head of the faith for so many people, many people put their faith and trust in it. However, the Catholic Church has had a lot of public mishaps developing a bad reputation worldwide.^[4]The Credibility of the Catholic Church as
Public Actor

Most parents should feel safe sending their kids to a Catholic priest. However, the Catholic Church continually hires and protect pedophile priests. The Church does this by telling the family to be quite as well as moving the bad priests between churches instead of reporting them to the police. Unfortunately, this worked for a long time. But eventually the Catholic Church had too much dirt to hide and it came out. Due to their bad reputation, there is a large loss of faith in the Church and religion in general.

#6: Organized Labor Unions

During the American industrial revolution, the United States experienced a period of uncontrolled economic growth. During this period, large companies could do pretty much whatever they wanted with little government oversight. The workers had very little protection in this system. If they didn’t follow the business’s rules, the businesses could easily fire them. As such, the American working class experienced a lot of hardships.

In response the working class formed labor unions in order to organize in large groups that could negotiate with the big businesses as a single strong voice. Some of their originally founding principles included helping raise the wage for workers, improving working condition, and getting job security.

However, as time passed, the Unions got greedy and kept on asking for more. Slowly, they bleed companies dry. In fact, Unions went so far that they helped destroy the American industrial force. As a result, the Union has a bad reputation today. In fact, by 2013, only 11.3% of American labor is unionized, the lowest it had been for 97 years.^[5]The New York Times – Union Membership Drops Despite Jobs Growth

#5: The Police

The police protect and serve the community. However, this is not always the case. While there are good police officers; unfortunately, there are also a lot of bad police officers as well. For example, in Portland, Oregon, the police department has a strained relationship with the citizens. In fact, since 1993, the department has paid more than $4.5 million in lawsuit settlements for the deaths and injuries to people caused by Portland police officers due to police shootings and other incidents.^[6]The Orgonian – Loss of trust in police threatens the safety of officers and citizens As such, due to police department like that in Portland, police departments throughout the United States have a bad reputation, whether it be earned or not.

#4: The US Congress

The United States Congress is one of the most powerful government bodies in the US government. It holds the power to make laws. However, according to polling done by the Pew Research Center, America’s distrust for Congress is at an all-time high. In fact, 80% of the American people don’t trust it and thinks it has a bad reputation.^[7]The Atlantic – 80 Percent of Americans Don’t Trust the Government. Here’s Why One of the main reasons for its bad reputation is the partisan politics that plague Congress. The American public see constant bickering from each side and no real results.

#3: Big Business

The American people used to trust business. In fact, the only thing that Americans trusted more were Nonprofit organizations. However, in our modern times, big businesses have lost most of the public’s trust and gained a bad reputation. One of the main reason is because of the globalization of the market place. Most people think and are afraid that big businesses cares more about their financial performance than their social responsibilities to their workers and community.^[8]Harvard Business Review – Survey: People’s Trust Has Declined in Business, Media, Government, and NGOs

As such, today, workers don’t have the same amount of loyalty for the company that they work for that they once did. In fact, workers are much more like to switch between several companies during their careers. In comparison, before it was very common for an employee to work their whole career with the same company. They might start at the bottom, but slowly over time rise through the company ranks during a 30+ year career. However, with today’s big businesses showing little support towards their employees, they have gained a bad reputation and lost a lot of loyalty.

#2: The US Supreme Court

Traditionally, the US Supreme Court has been one of the more popular branches of government. People have usually seen it as an impartial judge. However, recently, the Supreme Court have lost a lot of their credibility with the general public and gained a rather bad reputation of putting politics before everything else.^[9]The Nation – Why Are Americans Losing Trust in the Supreme Court? There have always been judges who leaned politically right or left. However, in our modern times, the public seems that the Supreme Court, much like Congress, also divides itself along party lines.

#1: The public school system

The American Public school system used to have a very good reputation. Parents used to feel confident that their children were getting a good education. However, slowly but surely the public education system’s once great record has turned into a bad reputation. In fact, the level of American education is worse than many other 1^st world countries.^[10]The Atlantic – How Americans Lost Trust in Our Greatest Institutions A multitude of factors such as lack of funding, too many kids in the classroom, and a standardized system focused on passing test and not teaching, cause this. As such, today, the American public school system has a bad reputation both nationally and internationally.