Detect early obstacles
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa - Head of Public Management Department, University of Economics and Law (Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City), the implementation of the two-level local government model is not simply rearranging the organizational structure but a profound institutional reform, directly impacting management methods, decentralization of authority and provision of public services to people.
According to Ms. Hoa, the press plays a particularly important role as a social supervisory institution in modern governance. By sticking to reality, reflecting inadequacies from the grassroots level and conveying the voice of the people, the press helps the government to identify early "bottlenecks" in the process of operating the new model. The press not only reflects phenomena but also has the ability to create policy warning signals. When articles are built on the basis of truth, data and practical evidence, the press effectively performs the function of policy criticism - an important requirement of modern governance.
An effective administration is not an administration without errors, but an administration that knows how to listen and self-adjust" - Ms. Hoa emphasized.
According to experts, when the press provides objective practical grounds, the government will have more basis to improve the operating mechanism, enhance accountability and promote evidence-based governance. This contributes to strengthening the adaptive capacity and learning capacity of the administrative apparatus in the transition period.
Policy feedback channel and bridge between people and government
Besides the information function, experts believe that the press should be seen as an important policy feedback channel. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa said that the quality of public governance is not only assessed by policy-making capacity but also depends on the ability to listen, understand and respond to people's needs. To do that, the government needs to have channels to receive information from practice quickly and multi-dimensionally.
The press has a special advantage in directly accessing social life, recording signals from the grassroots level and reflecting issues arising in the policy implementation process. By reflecting the thoughts, aspirations, recommendations as well as the difficulties of people when accessing public services, the press helps the government have more practical data sources to evaluate the quality of policy implementation. This is an important foundation for building evidence-based governance instead of just relying on one-way administrative reports.
According to Ms. Hoa, modern journalism needs to strongly promote the role of creating public dialogue between people and the government. When reflecting an issue, the press should not only stop at mentioning phenomena but also need to analyze the causes, point out inadequacies in the implementation mechanism and create a forum for all parties to exchange and find solutions. That process helps the government better understand the expectations of society, and at the same time helps people understand the difficulties and pressures in state management.
Agreeing with this view, Dr. Nguyen Nga Huyen - Deputy Head of the Communication Department, School of Management and Business (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) - said that the press plays an important role in leading public awareness and creating social consensus for major reform campaigns such as streamlining the apparatus or arranging administrative units.
According to Ms. Huyen, although the press itself is also subject to the impact of the arrangement and streamlining process when the number of press agencies decreases and many journalists have to change jobs, this does not reduce the accompanying role of the press in the reform process.
It is the exemplary role of press agencies and the fact that journalists are the first to accept change that has conveyed a strong message about the urgency of reform" - Ms. Huyen assessed.
Spreading effective models, strengthening confidence in reform.
According to experts, in addition to reflecting and monitoring, the press also has the task of detecting, verifying and spreading effective models in public governance.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa said that one of the limitations of the public sector today is not the lack of good initiatives but the lack of mechanisms for those initiatives to be shared and replicated throughout the system.
In the process of implementing the two-level local government model, many localities have proactively innovated methods of serving people, applied digital technology, improved the process of resolving administrative procedures and built creative ways of doing things suitable to practical conditions. However, many effective models still only stop within the local scope.
According to Ms. Hoa, the press can play the role of a national "management knowledge dissemination system". Not only introducing good models, the press needs to deeply analyze the conditions for success, innovation factors, values brought to people as well as the applicability in other localities.
Meanwhile, Dr. Pham Manh Hung - lecturer at the University of Economics (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) - believes that the press needs to "told the truth with a constructive mindset" to establish strategic trust in reforms. According to him, in the context of reform, losses, disruptions and skepticism are inevitable. Therefore, the truth needs to be conveyed with a spirit of empathy, sharing and placed in a broader context of the country's development process.
He cited an example of the policy of merging commune-level and provincial-level administrative units. This is a correct policy, but in the early stages, misunderstandings appeared in public opinion. When the press intervened more strongly, analyzed multi-dimensionally and dialogued with the people, social awareness gradually changed in a positive direction.
According to Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Thi Ha, generations of journalists are soldiers on the ideological and cultural front, who have dedicated themselves and contributed to noble political tasks. Thereby, contributing to building a press that is truly the voice of the Party and State, a forum and a reliable bridge between the People and the Party and State.
She expressed her appreciation for creative ways of doing things, articles with profound criticism, and timely news bulletins full of humanity, contributing to orienting public opinion, reflecting the thoughts and aspirations of the people. In which, the articles have sparked belief in administrative reform, organizational structure arrangement, building an administration, incorruptible and professional public service, serving the People.
The press has helped officials of the Home Affairs sector regularly review themselves, to better identify what has been done and what needs to be further improved. The press is also a bridge between the Party, the State and the people, thereby bringing the policies advised by the Home Affairs sector to the Government, the National Assembly, and the Central Party into life soon" - Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Ha said.
