Read All About It Chris Mueller discusses the important role the local media plays in Vietnam despite sometimes onerous restrictions. Photo by Fred Wissink.
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he local Vietnamese media has had its fair share of criticism from the international press and anyone who has read the English versions. Despite a lack of widespread journalism schools and strict restrictions about what is allowed to be published here, the local media is still able to produce quality journalism and plays an important role in Vietnamese society. As every international report about the Vietnamese media is quick to point out, the press here is controlled by the authorities. However, this doesn’t mean that independent and effective journalism isn’t done. “Local newspapers' coverage of local level corruption and or abuse of power has in certain instances become more bold and earned public respect,” Shawn Crispin, the southeast Asia Representative to the Committee to Protect Journalists, says. “The local media's coverage of the shootout between state authorities and the family of fish farmers in Haiphong city earlier this year was a case and point.” Crispin is referring to the coverage of an incident in January. According to Thanh Nien, a popular Vietnamese newspaper, the shootout began when police officers and soldiers were sent to confiscate land from a fish farmer. The incessant coverage by the local media has led both local and national government officials to reexamine Vietnam’s
land tenure system, with the Prime Minister going so far as to become involved with the case. Many also ignore the coverage local newspapers give to social issues affecting the poor and victimized. In July last year, Tuoi Tre, which arguably has the largest newspaper circulation in Vietnam, ran a series of articles about life in a massage parlour. One of their female reporters spent a month undercover in a typical massage parlour like those that can be found throughout Vietnam. The reporter wrote about the lives of some of the girls who worked in these places and what sexual favours were expected by the customers and owners. None of this was particularly ground breaking stuff, especially for anyone who has spent time in Asia, but it illustrated two important points about journalism in Vietnam. First, the willingness of a journalist to go so far as to put herself in an extremely awkward, and possibly dangerous position – journalists have always risked their lives for stories, the most recent example being the deaths of three prominent journalists in Syria. The second important thing a story like this does is to put an issue, like the every day exploitation of women in Vietnam, on the public record. Another good example of effective journalism is Thanh Nien’s investigation into mysterious explosions throughout the country involving motorbikes,
cars and buses. Their investigation led them to a regional gasoline distributor in Ho Chi Minh City where they video taped and photographed some of its workers siphoning gas out of the tankers and replacing it with low-quality fuel that was causing these fires. The investigation and published reports led to an outcry from the public and authorities began to inspect gas stations more thoroughly throughout the country. Another interesting thing about Vietnam is that the print media is still prominent here. In the early mornings, carts full of newspapers and magazines can be seen on the side of major highways. With the newspaper industry struggling worldwide, it’s refreshing to see that people seem to still care about newspapers and many still buy them. While there are issues with the standards of the Vietnamese press, especially obvious on some of the poorly edited English websites, it’s important to remember that proper journalism schools only opened in Vietnam in the early 1990s, according to a report done by Dinh Hang, who lectures about journalism at the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy in Hanoi. Certainly a healthy and robust press is important to any country, but despite the challenges – and as long as readers don’t mind sifting through some of the sensationalised articles – the local media does a pretty good job with the limitations they are given. asialife HCMC 33