The Vietnamese press needed to renew itself and improve its quality, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong said in his meeting with journalists covering assembly news yesterday, June 20.

Vietnamese photojournalists in action. The Vietnamese media have been urged to lift the quality of their work. (Photo: VNS)

Trong’s comments coincided with Vietnamese Journalists’ Day today.

He said he expected the Vietnamese press in general, and journalists covering Assembly news in particular, to spend more effort highlighting positive trends and criticising negative ones in the society.

'Journalists need to see journalism as a means and a tool of information and dissemination, and a weapon for the revolutionary struggle,' Trong said.

Emphasising the crucial role of the press in the society, he said the media had a role to ensure National Assembly activities were widely known and that they attracted the public attention.

In another meeting, Politburo member and Party Central Committee’s Publicity and Education Commission chairman To Huy Rua said the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) should further renew itself.

The agency should improve the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the information it provided, he said on a visit to the agency yesterday.

Rua said, however, that he appreciated the contributions VNA had made to the country’s development in its role as a strategic information agency of the Party and the State.

The agency had done well in the context of change in global journalism, caused by rapid development of information technologies, he said.

HCM City People’s Committee chairman Le Hoang Quan also met with media representatives. He thanked the press for their positive contributions to the city’s socio-economic development and said he was committed to enhancing co-operation with journalists.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked State agencies to co-operate more with the press.

In a direction issued on Friday, he told agencies and organisations to be more active in providing information to the Viet Nam Association of Journalists so that it could be disseminated by journalists.

'Some State agencies and local authorities have failed to be aware of the role of the association and to create favourable conditions in terms of policies and human resources for the association to do their job,' he wrote.

Statistics show that by December 2009, Viet Nam had 706 print publications – including 178 newspapers and 528 magazines – 67 radio and TV stations, 21 online newspapers and 160 online versions of the print.

Thousands of online pages of different organisations were also reported.

More than 17,000 journalists were press card holders.

The Vietnamese press, also known as the revolutionary press, was born to meet the demand of the country’s revolution against colonialism and feudalism 85 years ago.

The Thanh Nien (Young People) Newspaper, established by President Ho Chi Minh, laid the first brick of Viet Nam’s revolutionary press. Uncle Ho was the editor for its first publication on June 21, 1925.

The press had always been part of the nation’s history and its revolutions during which more than 400 journalists lost their lives doing their jobs.

VietNamNet