Journalistic prudence

One day in mid-May, I made a field trip to Phin Chai 2 village, A Lu commune, Bat Xat district, where a historic flood occurred in September 2024, killing 7 people and collapsing dozens of houses. After nearly a year of returning to this place, I witnessed with my own eyes the life of the Mong people in the "flood center" area has revived. Returning after a difficult trip, full of information, documents in my notebook and photos, I wrote a reportage "Returning to the A Lu flood area".

Indeed, as the seniors have concluded, journalism is “hard to travel, easy to write”, with many emotions after the trip, I finished the article in just one afternoon. Engrossed in writing, when I looked back at the article, it was nearly 1,700 words, while the newspaper page was limited, so I reread it, cut unnecessary details, and redundant passages to make the article more concise. After checking the information and data in the article one last time and editing the photos taken, I confidently sent the article for editing, staging, and posting.

Two days later, while on the road, I received a phone call from Mr. Vu Thanh Nam, Head of the Editorial and Production Department. On the phone, Mr. Nam discussed whether the name of the character, Chief of Phin Chai 2, was Sung A Lung or Lu A Lung. Which name was correct? I was startled and opened my phone to review the article. It turned out that in my haste, I had written the character Lu A Lung at the beginning of the article, and Sung A Lung in the middle. Fortunately, the editors discovered the mistake before printing. This is a lesson that helps me be more careful in future articles.

As a reporter working at Lao Cai Newspaper for 15 years, I was assigned by the agency to write articles in many fields such as: culture,education , internal affairs, Party building... The journey of journalism with hundreds of articles each year left me with many unforgettable memories. There were articles that "started well, ended well", but there were also news and articles with errors and misinformation. The reason was due to time pressure to complete the work early or due to carelessness when verifying information.

In the articles, there are not only words but also a lot of information and data, especially articles about production development, or the fields of education, health , domestic affairs, etc., which need to have accurate data. The lesson I learned from my mistakes is that before submitting an article, I need to carefully check the data and dates in the article. Sometimes, in the news or article, there are a series of related data, but when added together, we discover errors and inconsistencies. There are many important data, just "a little bit wrong, a mile off", because a change in a number can change the nature of the problem.

I have learned a lesson: if journalists are not careful, alert, and do not thoroughly research the nature of the event, the character, from qualities to actions and words, it is easy to reflect one-sidedly, not in accordance with reality. As reporters, sometimes it is inevitable that there will be occupational "accidents". There are cases where, due to not checking the information carefully, when the article is published, the character has changed his/her title, or even... passed away. The smallest mistakes, regardless of subjective or objective causes, affect the journalist as well as the reputation of the press agency.

Nowadays, when the information technology revolution is taking place like a storm, information about social life is very rich and diverse, with many different sources of information; in which, on social networks there is information and images that are true, but there is also a lot of false information, fake information, cut and pasted, added, and distorted. As journalists, especially young reporters working at local Party newspapers, we need to train ourselves to be careful, honest, "clear eyes, pure heart, sharp pen" as journalist Nguyen Huu Tho wrote in his book about journalism.

Performed by: Khanh Ly

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/su-can-trong-nghe-bao-post403560.html