Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved the planning on the press by 2025 with an aim to reinforce pubic trust in the society and people’s patriotism. 

The move is also aimed to oppose fake news and disinformation that harm public trust in the Party and State, the Vietnam Television (VTV) has reported. 

The planning includes two main parts focusing on managing and reshuffling the press. 

Management 

The government has been urged to take actions on the press against the rampant establishment of newspapers, magazines, news portals, and general information websites over the past years. 

As of July 2018, the country was home to 857 printed newspapers and magazines, 159 e-newspaper and e-magazines, 67 radio and television stations, 1,510 general information pages, and 228 domestic social networks, showed statistics by the Ministry of Information and Communications.  

The control, therefore, should be tightened to keep the press on track guided by the Party and State, according to local media. 

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, through the approval, asked the press to cover more good deeds, mostly in education sector to drown out negative activities and unverified information on social networks. 

Reshuffle

In the course of fast growth of electronic information, Vietnam’s press should be revamped to keep up with the movements of global media, mostly the boom of social networks, domestic experts have said. 

As such, the planning focuses on encouraging the operations of electronic versions and gradually switching from print to electronic magazines. 

Among the targets of the reshuffles, cutting cost and improving quality are paramount. Accordingly, press agencies operate with financial autonomy rather than with financial subsidy by the state as before.

However, the government will partly support some key e-newspapers which successfully fulfil the missions both in Vietnamese and foreign languages as well as draw a large number of readers. 

Scopes 

For central-level newspapers: The Communist Party of Vietnam has mouthpieces including the Nhan Dan newspaper, Cong San (Communist) magazine, Dang Cong San (Communist Party) e-newspaper (planned to become a multimedia agency after 2020). 

The National Assembly’s Office, the People’s Supreme Procuracy, the People’s Supreme Court, and the State Audit Office of Vietnam each have one print newspaper and magazine. 

Ministries and ministerial-level agencies: have one printed newspaper and magazine each.

Central socio-political organizations: have one print newspaper and magazine each.   

Social organizations, associations: have one e-magazine each

Provinces and cities: have one print magazine and newspaper each. 

Licensed religious sects: are eligible to have one magazine each

State-owned corporations are not allowed to own any print newspaper or magazine.

Roadmap

The progress will start from the end of 2019 through 2025. 

The Ministry of Information and Communications is responsible for instructing the implementation while the Central Communication and Education Commission supervises the implementation. 

The PM-approved planning lays stress on downsizing the scope of the press by cutting the number of printed newspapers and magazines, general news portals, radio and television stations, according to the VTV. 

Hanoitimes