On the occasion of June 21, we met some resident reporters working in Thanh Hoa province, listened to their stories on the job, to see that journalism always has to face countless harsh challenges but also contains many interesting, warm feelings of life and humanity.
Journalist The Luong (Education and Times Newspaper):
Always have sympathy and attachment with ethnic minorities in mountainous areas
In nearly 20 years of working as a journalist, The Luong has worked in most of the remotest border areas of Thanh Hoa province. He always has sympathy and attachment to the ethnic minorities in the mountainous areas. It is also because of his "passion for the job" that he is always ready to come to the people, even in the most dangerous situations.
He said that during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2012, he and his colleagues rode motorbikes more than 200km to the border area of Muong Lat. At that time, Co Cai village (Trung Ly commune) was one of the “5 no” villages: no car roads, no phone signal, no national grid electricity, no Internet and no households escaped poverty.
During that assignment, he had a photo reportage called “Three Sisters… Living in Tent and Bed” . After that, the three sisters in the work received material support from benefactors, helping them to have the conditions to study. Also because of that photo reportage, he slipped and fell, broke his ankle cartilage and almost had to have it amputated.
Journalist The Luong - Education and Times Newspaper.
The following year, when he returned to Co Cai village to visit the family of the character in the photo report. When crossing the Ma River to the village, it was pitch black, the river water was flowing rapidly, the dugout canoe with a cole engine carrying 4 people was rocking because it was overloaded. "I had to hold my breath because the boat ran out of gas in the middle of the river, the boat drifted freely for a long distance and I was sweating when my feet touched the shore" , he recalled. After that trip, he adopted Ngan Thi Doa - the character in his photo report as his godson. Now, Doa lives with his family and is in her third year at Hong Duc University.
Journalist The Luong has many more trips, to many lands and people whose faces and names he cannot remember, but in general, his heart is still directed towards his compatriots in the border areas of the Fatherland. “Whenever I set foot in any land of Thanh Hoa, I feel as close as if it were my own homeland. Therefore, writing about the education career in the mountainous areas, the people living and working here is always an endless source of inspiration for me ” – Journalist The Luong confided.
Reporter Nguyen Van Hai (Thanh Nien Newspaper):
More than 4 hours walking through the mountains and forests
Reporter Van Hai - Thanh Nien Newspaper.
Nearly 7 years (from June 2016) have passed, but the time I worked at the scene where 3 people died of suffocation while illegally mining gold in Nuoc cave (Kit village, Lung Cao commune, Ba Thuoc district, Thanh Hoa) was the most memorable time I worked during my nearly 15 years as a journalist. On the night of June 5, 2016, I received information that 3 gold diggers were trapped in a cave dozens of meters deep, with a very high risk of suffocation and death.
That very night, I and a number of reporters from other press agencies traveled more than 80km from Thanh Hoa city to the mountainous district of Ba Thuoc to be at the scene the next morning.
I was led by local people and an official of Ba Thuoc district through many forests and rocky mountains. And it took more than 4 hours to get from the center of Kit village to Nuoc cave - where the suffocation incident occurred. When we arrived, it was past noon, the sky began to gather dark clouds, forcing us to work quickly in nearly 1 hour to get down the mountain in time, otherwise when it got dark, we would not know the way out.
In less than a day, my colleagues and I had to walk for nearly 9 hours through the mountains and forests. During that time, we had no food or rest, only occasional drinks of water to sustain our lives, so when we reached the center of Kit village, we were all exhausted, lying on the ground and glad to know that we were still alive.
Journalist Nguyen Thuy (Education and Times Newspaper):
When the issues I reflect on bring positive things, I have more motivation to love my job and contribute.
Journalism does not usually discriminate between men and women, female journalists also do the same tasks as men. However, women who choose journalism have to shoulder a burden twice as heavy as men, because on one side is the pressure of work, on the other side is the responsibility of being a wife and mother. Not to mention the time spent working in the mountains for a whole week, even on normal days, when they come home, there is never no more work.
Journalist Nguyen Thuy received the A prize at the 2021 Tran Mai Ninh Journalism Award.
In over 10 years of working as a journalist, there were about 10 Tet holidays where I was not home on New Year’s Eve because every year I had to do news reporting. I still remember the next time I returned from the scene with “hot” news, my husband had appendicitis and had to be hospitalized. In order to report the event in time, I had to sit in the hospital hallway and diligently write.
Or the days of working during the COVID-19 pandemic, many days coming home but not daring to hold my child. One time while working in the mountains, I heard the teacher calling that my child was sick, but I couldn't go home, I felt sorry for my child, tears just flowed.
There were times when I wrote about negative issues, I received threatening phone calls from strangers, and there were times when bad guys came to my house to terrorize me... However, when the issues I reflected received public attention, brought positive things, readers trusted the newspaper more, I had more motivation to love my job and contribute.
Journalist Anh Tuan (Dai Doan Ket Newspaper):
Journalists go and observe
Journalist Anh Tuan - Dai Doan Ket Newspaper.
More than 10 years ago, during a reporting trip, I and a new colleague, working at Thanh Hoa Newspaper, went up to Thuong Xuan District (Thanh Hoa). While we were wandering on the bridge over Khao River, I suddenly discovered that the river had two different water colors. On the right side, the water was murky as if there was a flood. On the left side, the water was clear, you could see all the way to the bottom with beautiful pebble beaches.
I asked my colleague, who was also born and raised in this land: "Have you discovered anything suspicious under the Khao River?" He looked around for a while and then answered: "I don't know!" I wondered, the sky was clear, there was no rain or flood, why did the Khao River have two unusual water colors? We decided to wade along the left bank, walking about a kilometer, my friend looked frustrated. I encouraged him to keep going, there must be something unusual happening! We waded about another kilometer and discovered a dredger dredging sand and gravel from the river to bring them to the ship for screening. It turned out that it was an illegal gold mining ship, changing the flow of the Khao River, polluting the environment, losing the country's rare mineral resources, and threatening the safety of a nearby cultural work.
Having collected all the information from the scene, local authorities, district officials as well as leaders of departments in Thanh Hoa, we decided to report the incident to the editorial office and the article was published. And as soon as we received the information, the Thanh Hoa provincial authorities immediately took drastic action against the owner of the dredger that illegally mined gold on the Khao River.
Thanh Hoa resident reporter working in the area where 3 gold miners suffocated to death in 2016.
Ha Anh (Implementation)
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