Does Journalism Truly Exist in Vietnam?

Hạo Nam wrote this Vietnamese article, published in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 2o, 2025.

If we consider Gia Định Báo (1865) as its starting point, Vietnamese-language journalism has a 160-year history. Today, Việt Nam has approximately 820 media outlets, most of which operate under the banner of the “revolutionary press”— explicitly pro-government media where each journalist is seen as a “soldier” fighting for the Communist Party’s ideology.

But if journalism is defined by its core values of truth, independence, fairness, humanity, and accountability, has a truly independent press ever existed in Việt Nam?

Looking back at history, journalism in Việt Nam was born not in freedom, but under the totalitarian colonial regime established by the French in Cochinchina.

According to some Vietnamese researchers like Đặng Thị Vân Chi, early newspapers like Gia Định Báo and Phan Yên Báo in Sài Gòn might primarily serve as propaganda tools for the French colonial government, rather than as sources of information or progressive ideas for the Vietnamese public. The French quickly issued decrees to restrict press freedom, granting the Governor-General sole authority to license newspapers. These licenses could be granted or revoked at will; obtaining one was notoriously difficult.

This dynamic became more complex during the Vietnam War. In the Republic of Việt Nam (South Việt Nam), the press grew more dynamic while still constrained by wartime conditions. In just two decades, papers like Tự Do, Thời Luận, and Chính Luận developed distinct political stances. Some, such as Sóng Thần and Điện Tín, even acted as platforms for social criticism and anti-war activism, often openly criticizing the government. This led to frequent political pressure, including suspensions and the imprisonment of dissenting journalists under administrations like that of President Ngô Đình Diệm. 

In contrast, the press in North Việt Nam under the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam was completely monolithic; no media outlets provided truthful reporting on the war or presented anti-war perspectives.

Fifty years after the war’s end, one might expect peacetime journalism in a unified Việt Nam to have evolved toward the global standards of freedom and objectivity. Instead, it is defined by the concept of "revolutionary journalism," a term repeatedly referenced by state media. This concept traces its origins to the Thanh Niên newspaper, founded by Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Hồ Chí Minh) in 1925, and more deeply to the early 20th-century writings of Lenin.

As writer Nguyễn Việt Thanh noted, after the 1917 October Revolution, the Soviet Communist Party rejected the universality of press freedom, asserting that "freedom of speech is a bourgeois prejudice." In this view, the press exists solely to convey the ruling party’s will to the people.

This aligns with the current understanding in Việt Nam. Associate Professor Dr. Nguyễn Văn Dững, a longtime journalism lecturer, has defined revolutionary journalism simply as "journalism of the Party." In this framework, the reasoning is that if the Party is strong, then journalism is strong. The press’s very survival and growth, therefore, depend entirely on the continued presence of the Communist Party of Việt Nam.

In another article published by VOV newspaper, several domestic ideological experts asserted that the press must fulfill a dual role: serving as a "shield on the ideological front of the Party" and a sharp weapon in the "mission of upholding righteousness and eliminating evil."

The media space has unintentionally become a military camp, where each journalist is regarded as a soldier defending the Party. This reveals journalism's fundamental nature as merely an effective propaganda tool for the government.

The Party already has an extensive arsenal when viewed as a propaganda apparatus. This includes the Central Propaganda Department, the Central Theoretical Council, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, and more than 10,000 official propagandists (as of 2017). This number is further bolstered by over 820 state-owned press and media agencies.

From another perspective, although the 2016 Press Law is regarded as the foundational framework for shaping Việt Nam’s media policy, it embodies inherent contradictions. For instance, Article 4 stipulates that “the press is the voice of the Party,” while simultaneously declaring that the press is also “a forum for public discourse.” In reality, such a dual role is untenable.

Similarly, Article 13 of the law states: “The State shall facilitate citizens’ exercise of press freedom and freedom of speech,” and that “the press shall not be subject to prior censorship before printing, transmission, or broadcasting.”

However, this notion of “freedom” is immediately constrained by the caveat: “No one shall abuse the right to press freedom or freedom of speech to infringe upon the interests of the State, organizations, or individuals.”

Article 9 of the 2016 Press Law also outlines a series of prohibited acts in the media environment, such as: “Distorting or denying the people’s government,” “denying historical or revolutionary achievements,” among others.

These legal provisions cast the press as a propaganda instrument—an approach that, as we can see, has deep historical roots. The shared historical trajectory of an ideological tradition extends from the Soviet Union to Vietnam, one that has forged a common fate for both nations’ press systems.

Ultimately, the history of journalism in Vietnam reveals that the press has yet to escape the consistent orbit of instrumentalization. It has never truly undergone a period of genuine independence. It has merely evolved from being a tool of the colonial state to becoming a tool of the socialist state—governed by a single ruling party—under the banner of “revolutionary journalism.”