Senior Lieutenant General, Academician, Doctor Nguyen Huy Hieu emphasized this in a conversation with reporters of the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper.
+ Sir, how do you view the ethics of journalists in the current context?
- President Ho Chi Minh once advised journalists: “All journalists must have a firm political stance. Politics must be in charge. Only when the political line is correct can other things be correct.” He considered the honesty of journalists a very important ethical standard in the journalism profession.
We must affirm that revolutionary journalism in the struggle for national liberation, especially in the two resistance wars against France and the US, has left a profound mark.
In the period of building and defending the Fatherland, especially the period of development and integration, revolutionary journalism "exploded" in all aspects. The development of science and technology increasingly requires the capacity, intelligence and ethics of journalists to be constantly trained.
Journalists are the ones who honestly reflect the situation of the country and the people. In the current period of strong development of science and technology, the quality of journalists must be higher and more discerning to distinguish between right and wrong, real and fake. Because in multi-dimensional information, there will be real information, fake information, distorting the truth.
Journalists must be the ones who connect the cultural quintessence of the nation in conveying messages to the community and to all classes of people. Journalists themselves contribute to building the culture of the Vietnamese nation, building the great national unity bloc, and contributing to building people's trust in the leadership of the Party. Only with trust can there be strength. Many journalists dare to fight against negativity, write incisive articles, and make their mark on the cultural, ideological, political, and diplomatic fronts.
However, recently, there has been a phenomenon of some journalists providing false information or focusing too much on one-sided judgmental information instead of objective, honest and constructive criticism... Writers take advantage of the prestige and "shadow" of the Vietnam Revolutionary Press, deliberately reporting false information for personal purposes, causing public opinion to be divided, not knowing what is real and what is fake, affecting the prestige of the Vietnam Revolutionary Press in general and of journalists in particular. Some journalists and reporters take advantage of having one-sided, unverified internal information about the shortcomings and mistakes of agencies and businesses, then exert pressure and threaten them to gain illegal profits...
+ So, according to you, what is the cause of the phenomenon of some journalists trading ethics and information quality?
- One of the reasons is that those journalists "run after the profits" of the market economy, due to group interests or maybe because the political will and moral qualities of journalists are "commercialized" for money, even helping subversive subjects. This has a negative impact on society, reducing people's trust. Besides, the lax management and education of the governing bodies and press agencies has caused a number of reporters and collaborators to not actually perform their professional activities but only take advantage of the name of journalism for personal gain.
In the fight against corruption and negativity with the spirit of “no forbidden areas” , many pioneering journalists have contributed to uncovering corruption cases. Thanks to the discovery of the press, many corruption cases have been brought to light and strictly handled. Because there are “no forbidden areas” , the press has the right to exploit a lot, contributing to building the strength of the political system, cleaning up the internal apparatus of the Party and State, contributing to building a prestigious integrated Vietnam in the region and internationally. The international community also praises Vietnam for its fierce and persistent fight against corruption, creating confidence for international investors in Vietnam to increasingly sustain and develop.
However, on the other hand, there is also a phenomenon of some journalists taking advantage of the intensified fight against corruption to find violations and wrongdoings of some officials, leaders and businesses to "threaten" and "force" those who show signs of violations to comply with the conditions set by the journalists, for personal motives. That has created an unclear public opinion in the fight against corruption and negativity.
+ Personally, General, have you ever received any feedback about journalists taking advantage of the press to harass businesses and engage in illegal activities?
- Occasionally, I also hear public opinion and colleagues reflect on the fact that press reporters come to work with units and businesses that have "problems" with shortcomings and errors and always raise the issue that if they meet this or that condition, they will not be reported to the press. But in general, those cases have been discovered and handled after the units and businesses have reflected. I think that the mechanism for businesses to reflect on their units being "intimidated" by reporters is also very important and needs to be clearly defined.
+ According to you, what regulations are needed to solve the problem of "hiding behind" the press and then "threatening and blackmailing" individuals and businesses?
- Dealing with this matter - the most important thing is to make corruption cases public and transparent. That is, the cases must be made public, not "half-covered" , so that some individuals can take advantage of public opinion to hear that this unit, that enterprise, that individual has this or that story to "blackmail" them by many tricks. Of course, this is also very difficult, not easy. People have a guilty conscience, so they easily respond to other people's requests to cover up their shortcomings.
For the state press management agency and press agency leaders, it is necessary to set out strict regulations on the ethics of reporters, and at the same time, there must be multi-dimensional information channels to detect signs of journalists violating professional ethics. Detecting individuals who take advantage of the press to "blackmail" agencies and businesses is not too difficult. If an individual has that "character" , it is very easy to be denounced, so those who dare to denounce must be encouraged and those who dare to denounce must be protected. There must be a mechanism to protect people or businesses who dare to denounce and reflect cases of taking advantage of the press to do illegal things. In addition, when violations are detected, they must be strictly handled to set an example for other journalists.
We need to rectify this situation. Currently, negativity is occurring in many areas, not just the press. We are preventing and fighting corruption and negativity in all areas, without exception, without forbidden areas. The press fights negativity, but we also need to fight negativity within the press agency, within each journalist.
In the coming time, in the process of innovation and deeper integration of the country, it is necessary to strengthen the building of ethics of journalists and the culture of journalists. Journalists must put the interests of the nation and the people above their own interests. Journalists must have culture in addition to ethics, qualities, capacity, intelligence, and creativity. Only with a cultural foundation can messages be conveyed to the community and to the people, not only in Vietnam but also to the region and the world.
Culture is the source of a nation. If journalists put themselves in the position of spreading the culture of the Vietnamese people, they will certainly develop their capacity, intelligence, and contribute to the country.
+ Thank you very much, General!
Nguyen Huong (Implementation)
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