Journalist - "profession", "career" and spirit of service

Not to mention that "traditional" journalists are facing challenges from digital technology , artificial intelligence... And many other pressures are putting thousands of journalists in front of new choices!

Since the beginning of the year, I have had to say goodbye to dozens of journalist friends. They left the profession when they were no longer young but not old enough to receive their pensions. Many people had been attached to the profession, and had a bit of “reputation” in the journalism world. And then they left the newspaper that they had been attached to throughout their youth, their youth, their ambitions, their dreams, and left with a new choice.

Sad or happy? It's hard to say because life is putting more and more pressure, and so is the press! The emergence and rapid growth of social networks has caused many newspapers to lose their former position. When a news story or a "hot" event just happened, social networks immediately livestreamed it directly from the scene, so the news, even from online newspapers, cannot keep up, let alone print newspapers!

Many newspapers, including those with the highest circulation in Vietnam, are struggling to “manage” due to the falling circulation, and the circulation is related to advertising. Revenue from advertising plays an important role for “self-supporting” newspapers. Not to mention the new form of advertising that is developing, that is, instead of advertising in newspapers, people choose KOLs (the “hot facebookers”, “hot bloggers” on social networks) with paid statuses or colloquially called “commercial posts” instead of advertising in newspapers!

Dak Lak newspaper reporter working in Truong Sa. Photo: Giang Dong

Decreased circulation, decreased advertising, and decreased income. In that context, to be able to cover family expenses, many journalists will "leave", even though they still love their jobs dearly. "Bread and butter is no joke for poets". Where will my friends go when they leave the newspapers? Almost everyone chooses a job that is still more or less related to journalism but with a seemingly better income, which is doing communications for companies and corporations!

And then what? Then there were groups of journalists who, in a painful and humorous term, were called “floor-counting journalists” - a type of journalism that digs up unfavorable information from businessmen, enterprises, individuals… to then bargain and make money! Continuous negative incidents related to “floor-counting journalists” were exposed, not only causing society to lose trust in journalism, but also making honest journalists feel ashamed when they are in the same team, carrying the same card issued by a ministerial-level agency.

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On the days of commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Vietnamese revolutionary press, I remembered a story from a few years ago. When I went to the Northwest to do a series of articles "Names on the rocks - became street names" about the streets named after heroic martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the war to protect the northern border from 1979 - 1989 (the work was later awarded the A prize of the 17th National Press Award, 2022), the first street we set foot on in Lao Cai was named after a journalist and writer: Bui Nguyen Khiet street.

On the street nameplate, there is a brief biography: “Bui Nguyen Khiet (1945-1979) was a journalist and reporter for Hoang Lien Son newspaper. He died at the border front in Muong Khuong district while working, participating in the fight to protect the northern border of the Fatherland”. Hoang Lien Son was the old name when Lao Cai and Yen Bai provinces merged after 1975. In February 1979, journalist Bui Nguyen Khiet became a reporter for the newspaper and he heroically died while fighting to protect the Ta Ngai Cho border post (Muong Khuong district, Lao Cai province). He was only 34 years old at that time.

Before Bui Nguyen Khiet, in the two resistance wars against France and America, many journalists fell, after Bui Nguyen Khiet there were still young journalists who sacrificed their lives while working. So, "revolutionary journalism" is a concept that has a time frame since 1925 when the revolutionary Nguyen Ai Quoc founded the Thanh Nien newspaper. Each journalist must have a revolutionary spirit to be able to embark on this difficult career path.

The revolutionary spirit of today's journalists is to stand firm and overcome the great challenges of the digital age, amid the explosion of information, the negative side of social networks and the temptations of fame and personal interests. Amidst the myriad of information flows, the role of journalists becomes even more important: they are the ones who "separate the bad from the good", choose the truth, protect the right, criticize the wrong, and guide public opinion in an objective and humane way. That mission requires journalists to not only be good at their jobs but also have a strong character, pure ethics and a high social responsibility to accompany the country's development, dare to speak out against injustice, and at the same time inspire confidence, a spirit of innovation and aspiration to rise up of the nation in the new era. Because the press not only reflects life but journalists must contribute to making life better.

Vietnamese has the word “career”. If it is a job, it is simple, but if it is a career, it is certainly difficult to quit. Choosing journalism as a career, surely no one will leave when income is reduced, the working environment is stressful, because journalists also have a mission, a mission as the late Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet once said on June 21, 2007: “I think most journalists do not choose journalism as a profession just to make a living. I believe that journalism is and will be seen as the role that society always expects of us: behaving more responsibly towards the country and the people”.

Responsibility to the country and the people will be greater than any difficulty that journalists have to face!

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/xa-hoi/202506/nha-bao-nghe-nghiep-va-tinh-than-phung-su-435035a/