The dilemma of change in Vietnamese journalism

Asia Pacific Media Educator Issue 1 Article 10 9-1996 The dilemma of change in Vietnamese journalism D. J. Smollar University of California-San Diego, US Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/apme Recommended Citation Smollar, D. J., The dilemma of change in Vietnamese journalism, Asia Pacific Media Educator, 1, 1996, 90-95. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/apme/vol1/iss1/10 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: Media Commentary The Dilemma Of Change In Vietnamese Journalism David J. Smollar University of California-San Diego ©AsiaPaClfic MediaEducator VoLl:l, Sept., 1996 90 Two steps forward, one step back? Or one step forward, two steps back? Thafs the dilemma in trying to judge changes in Vietnamese journalism today. The nation's media, even though still government-owned, are in a state of flux under doi moi (market renovation policy). Take a few examples of the parry-and-thrust between reporters, edItors and Party overseers. A glossy, full-colour monthly called Thoi Trang Tre (New Fashion) proves wildly popular among Vietnamese youth with fashion and make-up tips, and bikini-clad photos of shapely Western and Viehlamese models. Yet its staff frets over each Cindy Crawford or Elle MacPherson photo lest a cultural official decry the corruption of a Western lifestyle. The editor, Vu Quang Vinh, a former art director and playwright for the state's Youth Theatre, steers clear of political issues. But the magazine's contents crystallize the cultural pitfalls that top-level Party conservatives fear as Vieb.1am opens at oftenbreakneck speed to the outside world, especially since the twoyear-old magazine already exceeds 60,000 circulation, despite a princely US$l price when most Vietnamese periodicals go for US15 cents or less. So, when prominent leaders exhort themedia to promote "good deeds" and to avoid "British tabloid" style stories on love, sex, and other cultural debasements, the media take heed. Or consIder the decision by Ly Qui Chtmg, managing editor of the paper Thanh Nien Thoi Dai (Youth of Current Era), to test media limits in the summer of 1995 by printing, ahead of an official Party communique, details of an upcoming state visit to Austraha and New Zealand by Party General Secretary Do Muoi. The trip was an open secret among Vietnamese joumalists, and had been reported in various Asian newspapers that circulate in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. When Chung received no calls from authorities after breaking with tradition, he concluded that the permissive space DAVID SMOUAR: The dilemma ofchange ... for Vietnam's media had been enlarged a tad. But half a year later} a commentary from President Le Duc Anh warned journalists against reporting details concerning the travels of top Party and government officials. Vietnamese newspapers now print full-color ads from Panasonic and Pepsi, and ambitious young reporters want to write of official government misdeeds, growing prostitution and environmental degradation. But editors-m-chief must meet weekly with Party ideology chiefs, many of them trained in Soviet-style propaganda, who encourage caution for reporters and, if need be, insist on it. With the ever-expanding nature of doi mOl, the medIa have flexed their wings} enough to develop what one sympathetic Party official called "freedom of information" as contrasted to "freedom of the press." Nguyen Tri Dung, deputy editor-m-chief of the Englishlanguage Vietnam Investment Review and a former press officer in the MinIstry of Culture, said mfonnation now flows two ways. "Before} we just had one-way information, top to bottom, from the government to the people. Now we also have information to the government from the people." Cultural hIstorian Huu Ngoc observes: "Now there is talk of democracy, and a debate over what constitutes freedom of the press. Is democracy different between the West and East? Must freedom of the press be adapted to national conditions and culture? Is it relative and dependent on the level of public maturity? These are the polemics we now hear." Ngoc} a Hanoi scholar in his 80s, traces his roots back to French-language Communist Party revolutionary journals at the end of World War II. "The press now refle.cts more the preoccupations of the people rather than those of the Party, and those preoccupations are trending toward materialism after almost 30 years of deprivation. People now would like to enjoy life more for themselves, rather than always sacrificing for the communIty. You see this in the struggle between conservatIve and progressIve elements in the Party, and in the commercialization of the media." Readership potential is hIgh m Vietnam, where 95% of adults have basic literacy, ReSIdents in major cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Mmh City devour magazines and newspapers, especially with the greater variety of titles and breadth of information available under dOl mOL Newspapers and magazines have ballooned to more than 350 todaYI from less than 50 in the 1970s. Supporters of thIS new found freedom of informatIOn acknowledge that Party officials, not journalists, remain the ultimate arbiter of what passes muster in the press. "You can change the limbs} but you cannot yet talk about removal of the AswPacljic MedlaEducator. Volume l l. September /996 91 DAVID SMOUAR: The dilemma ofchange ... trunk or roots," a Ho Chi Minh City writer said, meaning that criticism of an individual or social problems cannot be directly linked with criticism of overall party policies. Freedom of information, however, is still a novelty so that most editors interviewed for this article noted with awe stories criticizing high-level officials. They cited the example of the Minister of Energy, lambasted by the media for ineptness m carrying out construction of a major 500 kilovolt transmission line. While such criticism proceeds only after a cue from the leadership, editors nevertheless view it as a posItive development and say that exposure of lower-level corruption or inefficiency no longer must waitfor a Party-approved campaign. "Journalists can now use their eyes as well as their ears/' said Huynh Chieu Duong, a Belgian citizen who directs Vietnam Scoop, a French-language joint venture monthly magazine on investment opportunities in Vietnam. "Journalists were traditionally trained m the Socialist ideology just to 'hear,' to transmit what top party and government people wanted to have printed." All Vietnamese media are officially owned and licensed by the government. The 1989 press law specifically states that the media is to serve the party. Ongoing changes ill Vietnam revolve around how to interpret and how fast to stretch those terms under liberalizing pressures from citizens now tasting a bIt of economic freedom. Periodicals are being weaned from subsidies and forced to court advertisers and readers in order to survive, a tr (...truncated)