On the afternoon of April 21, at the Preliminary Conference on the implementation of the Prime Minister's Decision No. 558/QD-TTg on the program to support creative activities of works, literary and artistic works, the press, Mr. Phan Toan Thang-Chief of the Vietnam Journalists Office-said: From 2021 to 2023, the State budget has supported VND 27.7 billion for the creative activities of the local journalism.
From this funding source, the Program has directly supported more than 4,000 members with 4,263 high-quality press works. This is an important resource contributing to improving the professional qualifications, political courage and modern working ability of journalists, especially through political and professional training courses organized with support from the budget.
Thanks to that, many reporters in remote, isolated, border and island areas have had the opportunity to travel for a long time, truly reflecting the "breath of life", creating balance in the national information flow and improving the quality of works. Press products that have been seriously invested in from support sources have become effective propaganda tools for the Party's guidelines, a healthy forum for social criticism and a sharp "weapon" in preventing and combating "self-evolution" and "self-transformation".
However, the implementation of Decision No. 558/QD-TTg is still facing difficulties. Some localities have not yet allocated funds to the Provincial Journalists Association to carry out support work, affecting the effectiveness of the program.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Loi - Permanent Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association - said that this is not a new requirement because the provisions are available, the support funding has increased (about 1.5–1.6 times compared to the previous period) but still low. In the context of fierce information competition, the average support level for a work is still very limited. The allocation of funds is still spread, mainly focusing on the units with internal resources, while not investing methodically for young talent training - an important adjacent force of journalism.
According to Mr. Loi, the support work has not been implemented synchronously between the central and local governments, lacking consistency across the country. If this situation continues, it will be a major barrier to medium-term planning, slowing down the creative process of journalism works of scale and value worthy of the requirements of the revolution and life.
The Standing Vice President of the Vietnam Journalists Association emphasized that in the context of strong development of information technology and digital media, traditional journalism models are facing many challenges. Journalism technology is increasingly modern and professional, requiring large investments in both finance and human resources.
Currently, press agencies no longer have monopoly in providing information due to the development of social networks and millions of personal pages. The public's behavior of receiving information has also changed, from passive to proactive information production and sharing.
In that context, the press economy is increasingly difficult. The cost of modern press activities has increased, while all three main sources of revenue have decreased: Budget expenditure for the press is still low (regular expenditure below 0.5%, investment expenditure below 0.3%); press advertising revenue - especially print newspapers - has decreased sharply.
Mr. Loi cited that currently only about 30% of online advertising revenue belongs to press agencies, the remaining 70% falls into the hands of cross-border platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok... Many financially independent press agencies have to owe salaries to staff and reporters; there is no funding to upgrade machinery, software, and operational equipment that still uses technology from 10 years ago.
The press associations at all levels, press agencies and journalists across the country all share the common wish that the State will continue to implement and expand the High-Quality Journalism Support Program to the period of 20262030, with the budget increasing by at least 200% to meet new requirements - Mr. Nguyen Duc Loi proposed.
