W.Minh Tuan
Reading Vietnamese newspapers now is dangerous. It erodes human morality and personality, a culture imbued with national identity is nowhere to be seen, mainly seeing cheap sensational stories.
The newspapers have different headlines, but the topics are mostly the same, that is, “robbery-killing-rape” is bold on the front page, every newspaper becomes a cousin of the police newspaper.
Then there’s the HUGE story, the big giants, the big goods, the big cars, the big dollars, the big houses, the big stocks,,,.
The word HUGE is now fashionable in most cheap-worthless-tabloids.
Third, are the measurements of women, long legs, short legs, sex stories, sex news, put in the newspaper with beautiful reasons Counseling for Family Happiness.
Fourth, is the love affair of the giants, singers, actors,,,, also race to get on the front page of state-owned tabloids.
Fifth, is a story about politicians, but not their great merits in serving the country and society, but also sensational love stories, house stories, car stories, their foods, their cars,,,.
For example, the hot girlfriends of this President, the love story of the other President,,,, also race to the front page, big headlines, really cheap headlines.
Then when US President Obama visited Vietnam, in May 2016, the tabloids also mainly reported on the President’s dog, the President’s HUGE car, the President’s bodyguard, the President’s food,,,.
Why is there such a degrading situation in the Vietnamese newspaper village now?
Because it is very simple, Vietnam does not have a private press, only a tabloid press in the shadow of the State.
Those who are passionate about the country, want to be free to publish newspapers to preserve the national culture, support the party’s Doi Moi work, are not allowed to publish newspapers.
The rest, but the opportunistic, corrupt, immoral people, can’t do journalism, can’t write newspapers, but because they have the label of a Party member, they should be assigned as Editor-in-Chief.
Therefore, those types of corrupt, opportunistic and ignorant people only know how to get more readers by borrowing stories of robbers, murders, and women’s leg’s to sell newspapers.
Considering that during the French colonial period, Vietnamese people were allowed to publish private newspapers, famous private newspapers were born, such as Nam Phong magazine by culturalist Pham Quynh, Tieng Dan newspaper by Huynh Thuc Khang, magazine. magazine Fifth Novel, Seventh Novel, Gia Dinh newspaper,,,.
All of them are private press, have a good reputation in society, have the goal of preserving Vietnamese national identity, and preserving Vietnamese culture.
In Saigon before 1975, there were private newspapers such as Dong Phuong newspaper of the widow Van Son Phan My Truc, at 96 Vo Tanh Street, Steel Pen newspaper of Mr. Le Hien at 102-104 Le Lai Street, Chinh Luan newspaper of Mr. Dang Van Sung at 82 Le Lai, Opposite magazine of priest Chan Tin at 38 Ky Dong street,,,
All are reputable private newspapers, contributing to our Vietnamese culture and morality.
After the fall of Saigon, the press flourished and that progress was also shut down, giving way to the state-owned press.
At one time, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan very rightly commented on the current state of Vietnam’s state-run press, which is a very bad robbery-killing-rape press.
But what is the solution?
There is only one way to implement Ho Chi Minh Thought, expressed in the 8-point claim in 1919, which is Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Thought, allowing PRIVATE press, eliminating most of the state press-the current tabloid cheap Quoc Doanh newspaper.
Only a few major state newspapers should be kept, such as Nhan Dan newspaper of Party, Military newspaper, Voice of Vietnam Radio, Vietnam Television Station, and 5 major newspapers of 5 organizations: Dai Doan Ket-Solidarity of the Front National, Labor of the General Confederation of Labor, Pioneer of the Youth Union, Women of the Women’s Union, Farmers of the Farmers’ Union, and some major local newspapers, such as Hanoi Moi, Saigon Giai Phong ,,,.
The rest should be privatized and operated in accordance with the Law on Press. Anyone who wants to publish a private newspaper is allowed to publish a newspaper, only doing business registration procedures such as establishing a company.
Those who violate the Press Law will be suspended, fined, arrested or imprisoned depending on the seriousness of the violation.
The editor-in-chief of the garbage cheap tabloid press once confessed their secret, that if the Party and the State let the garbage-cheap-tabloid state press to be abolished, to be private press, they will must soon shut down their newspapers, now more business, no more deceit, no more to make newspapers “sensational to lure cheap customers”, no more borrowing woman’s legs stories.
If they do private newspapers, they must do business seriously, must be good at journalism, must be more ethical than others, must obey the law, then those garbage-cheap-tabloid state-owned newspapers will close their shops soon.
I wonder if the leaders of the party and the state understand that?
I believe a lot of leaders have understood that. The problem is that no one has been brave enough to raise the issue of press freedom publicly for the party congress to discuss.
However, that tabloid press has a great merit, contributing to the collapse of the national-beneficial high-speed railway project Shinkansen, which has a long-term value of hundreds of years, which the Japanese planned to help Vietnam to build in 2014-2015.
At that time, when the leaders of the Party and State of Vietnam came to Japan, they all earnestly asked the Japanese side to help Vietnam build high-speed railways, transfer know-how technology for management and construction to Vietnam.
The Japanese side considered it carefully for many years, and finally agreed to help Vietnam. Meanwhile, both the Russian side, the Chinese side, and the US side have all asked Japan to help build the Shinkansen high-speed railway and transfer technology know-how, but the Japanese side refused.
Only with Vietnam, the Japanese side is willing to help Vietnam, using Japan’s ODA to do it, only 30 years later it will have to pay the debt with an interest rate of less than 0.1%.
Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung boldly replied to the National Assembly that high-speed railways cannot be ignored, that the debt repayment plan that the Government has calculated, 30 years after each year, paying more than 2 billion USD of debt is entirely within our capacity to do so, that this high-speed rail project has a positive and continuous impact on hundreds of other industries in Vietnam, that it also changes the train-going culture of Vietnamese people, get on the train more polite, more delicate, do not swear, do not throw garbage, do not spit,,,.
But that tabloid press has gathered to beat in the group, making great contribution to knocking down that national-beneficial high-speed rail project, with the argument that “a brewery is only 5 the year the debt is paid off. And the high-speed rail project takes hundreds of years to pay off the debt.”
That stupid tabloid press is right, comparing the high-speed rail project to a draft-beer-bottle-beer brewery,,,is amazing.
So now looking at the trains of the Vietnam Railways passing through Thong Nhat Park – Hanoi, I see how pathetic, poor, and disheveled it is.
Americans say that the 21st century is the century of railroads.
No.
The Americans are wrong.
The Vietnamese tabloid press says the 20th century is the century of alcohol and beer. And the 21st century is also the century of alcohol and beer.////
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