According to a recent media study in Armenia, only 2% of respondents fully trust the media and 52% distrust the media fully.

Those who don’t trust the media cited hate speech and the politicization of the media as contributing factors.

The study was conducted by the CRRC-Armenia Foundation, which describes itself as a regionally focused and nationally based independent, non-partisan research center.

At a Yerevan discussion on media trust, Hetq Executive Director Kristine Barseghyan said she isn’t surprised by the study findings since the public in Armenia not only distrusts the media but most state institutions.

Noting that we live in an age of social media outlets in parallel with traditional news sources, the public has a hard time differentiating between truth and fiction.

Barseghyan said another problem is that the Armenian government also targets serious journalists and their work, labelling such in-depth content “yellow journalism”.

Chairman of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression Ashot Melikyan said he knew that the level of trust in the media had dropped but was surprised by the change.

"This is a very serious signal and could be a serious warning for the media to return to its former professionalism" Melikyan said.

Melikyan said the issue has worsening since the 2020 Karabakh war and that segments of the media are more politicized than ever.

Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Mediamax News Agency David Alaverdyan said it is somewhat paradoxical given that online media audience numbers are increasing as the level of trust decreases.

"People consume more information, visit more media sources, including the social media, but at the same time do not find reliable media outlets. Therefore, they do not trust anyone," said Alaverdyan.

 He said information consumers must search for those media outlets that report the news as professionally as possible.