The number of Russians who think media reports are false or biased has doubled in the last 12 months, a report by Russian journalism charity Mediastandart has revealed.
The number of respondents who said they frequently found media reports to be false or partial skyrocketed from 24 percent in 2015 to 48 percent in 2016.
Half of all Muscovites and 47 percent of St. Petersburg said they believed the news is “often biased.”
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Moscow residents were also among the least likely to trust the media as a whole, Mediastandart reported.
Just 58 percent of Moscow based respondents said they had faith in the media, putting the city on par with Russia's Tambov region and the southern republic of Ingushetia.
By comparison, residents in the annexed Crimean peninsula trusted the Russian media more than anywhere in Russia.
Almost 80 percent of Crimeans said they believed in the Russian media, including 75 percent in the peninsula's most populous city Sevastopol.
The Crimea were followed by the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District in northern Russia, where 73 percent of respondents said that they trusted Russian journalists.
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