Over the past decade, many Vietnamese news organizations have ceased operations, merged, or changed their operation models. As a result, numerous news websites have been shut down or are in the process of being closed. How should we treat these vast archives as national digital assets in the age of AI?

VietNamNet spoke with information technology strategy consultant Dao Trung Thanh on this issue on the occasion of the 101st anniversary of Vietnam Revolutionary Press Day, June 21, 2026.

How do you view the relationship between AI and journalism today?

I believe we should not see AI and journalism merely as a story of technology replacing humans. If we only ask, “Can AI write instead of journalists?”, we are framing the issue too narrowly.

The bigger question is, in a society where content can be generated almost rapidly and cheaply, what role does journalism still play?

In my view, journalism’s core role is not to produce more words, images, or videos. Its core role is to help society distinguish what is trustworthy, what needs verification, what serves the public interest, and what is merely rumor. AI can create more information, but journalism must help society become wiser.

Therefore, I see journalism in the AI era operating on three levels.

First, journalism is trust infrastructure. The public does not simply need to know “what happened.” People need to know “whom they can trust,” “which source is accountable,” and “what truth has been verified.”

Second, journalism is society’s responsible memory. A good article does more than record an event. It preserves the context, timing, people involved, debates, policy choices, and even the mistakes society has gone through. That is something raw internet data cannot do.

Third, journalism is a space where information ethics are practiced. AI can generate content, but it has no professional conscience, no discomfort when confronted with misinformation, and no social responsibility for the consequences of what it says.

We need a balanced approach: use AI to enhance verification, data analysis, and public service, but do not hand over the responsibility for truth to machines. Proper oversight does not kill creativity. Proper oversight gives creativity dignity.

Many people see journalism as a producer of news. From the perspective of an AI and data expert, is journalism also one of society’s largest systems for collecting and preserving data?

In terms of raw volume, social media platforms and digital networks may contain far more data than journalism.

However, journalistic data has a different value: it has been edited, sourced, verified, contextualized, and carries professional accountability. A social media post may capture an instant emotion. A good news article must record events, verify sources, place information in context, and leave a trace of responsibility.

In the AI era, this distinction is vital. AI does not lack data. AI lacks trustworthy, sourced, contextualized, and verifiable data. The Reuters Institute shows that users increasingly access news via social networks, videos, intermediary platforms, and recently, even chatbots (Egan et al., 2026; Newman, 2026; Newman et al., 2025). At that point, journalism is not merely a “news factory,” but the trustworthy data infrastructure of society.

A newspaper might have published hundreds of thousands of articles across 20 to 30 years, recording corporate history, policy debates, investment projects, and socioeconomic fluctuations. In your opinion, should that data be considered a kind of national data asset?

I believe it should, but we need to utilize this concept cautiously. Journalistic data spanning multiple decades should be viewed as a data resource of national value, rather than merely an old article repository of each individual press agency.

A newspaper publishing hundreds of thousands of articles over 20 to 30 years has recorded corporate histories, market fluctuations, infrastructure projects, policy debates, local life, education, healthcare, culture, urban settings, and the environment. That data can serve researchers, managers, enterprises, next-generation journalists, and particularly future Vietnamese AI systems.

However, recognizing journalistic data as having national value does not mean erasing ownership rights, responsibilities, copyrights, or the identity of individual news organizations.

As early as 2003, UNESCO defined digital heritage as unique resources of human knowledge and expression, including cultural, educational, scientific, administrative, technical, legal, and other forms of information created digitally or converted into digital form (UNESCO, 2003). By that definition, Vietnam’s digital journalism archives fully deserve to be recognized as part of the nation’s digital heritage.

Tu Giang - Lan Anh

to be continued....