MOSCOW, July 8 (RIA Novosti) – Television is the main source of news for Russians, although they are less inclined to trust it than in 2009, a poll by independent pollster the Levada Center released on Monday indicates.
According to the Levada Center’s poll, 88 percent of Russians named TV as their primary source of news, down six percentage points from a similar poll conducted in 2009.
Other popular news sources include friends and neighbors (at 24 percent compared to 26 percent in 2009), the Internet (up 12 percentage points to 21 percent), newspapers (down 17 percentage points to 20 percent), and radio (down 35 percentage points to 16 percent).
While television, as a medium, clearly remains a popular source of information, the poll also indicates that Russians trust it less than they did in 2009.
Whereas in 2009, 79 percent of those surveyed said they trust information on TV, this figure has fallen to just 51 percent this year. Meanwhile, the number of people polled who say they trust news they read on the Internet has doubled in the past four years, but remains relatively small, at 14 percent.
Just 12 percent of those polled by Levada said that they believe news bulletins on the main state TV networks are “completely objective,” while 53 percent said they are “largely objective” and 24 percent called them “largely not objective.”
The Levada Center surveyed a total of 1,601 people over 18 years of age between June 20 and June 24 in 43 regions of Russia. Respondents were allowed to give multiple answers, and the survey has a statistical margin of error of 3.4 percent.
Also on Monday, US pollster Gallup released a survey looking at news consumption preferences in America. It shows that TV is the main medium that Americans say they turn to for news about current events (55 percent), considerably ahead of the Internet (which comes in at 21 percent).
Nine percent of Americans surveyed by Gallup name newspapers or other print publications as their main news source, followed by radio, at 6 percent.
The Gallup poll surveyed a random sample of 2,048 adults aged 18 and older across the United States between June 20 and June 24, and has a 3 percent margin of error.
