Successful efforts in policy communication at a number of press agencies such as Nhan Dan Newspaper, Government Electronic Information Portal (GeV), and Government Electronic Newspaper partly demonstrate this.
Must create highlights and directions in policy communication
When the press has truly become the main channel for policy communication, the need for press agencies to renew themselves, be creative, and innovate content is the decisive factor in having the most effective way to convey policy messages to people and businesses.
In fact, there is no model of policy communication as a "role model" for press and media agencies to apply, learn from and implement. Therefore, encouraging creativity and innovation in the content and form of policy communication, how to convey information in a simple, easy-to-understand, easy-to-listen-to, easy-to-implement, easy-to-monitor, check, evaluate, easy-to-understand way, so that people voluntarily implement is what many press agencies are doing.
Through research in the press, we have found that a number of press agencies have found new, creative and effective ways to carry out policy communication work. The first press agency that can be mentioned is Nhan Dan Newspaper - the Central Agency of the Communist Party of Vietnam, one of the main multimedia media agencies - the official channel for the flow of information and policy communication.
Supplements of Nhan Dan Newspaper.
With the mission of propagating and bringing the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's laws and policies quickly into life, Nhan Dan Newspaper has constantly innovated and developed in recent times. The editorial office always focuses on propagating the Resolutions, Directives and documents of the Party and State, considering this a regular and continuous task.
In particular, in 2022, the Politburo issued six new Resolutions on socio-economic development, ensuring national defense and security in six regions until 2030, with a vision to 2045, including: the Northern Midlands and Mountains, the Mekong Delta, the Central Highlands, the Southeast, the North Central and Central Coast regions, and the Red River Delta.
In that spirit, the Editorial Board of Nhan Dan Newspaper has decided to publish six supplements on economic regions (6 special pages) to promptly disseminate the Party's Resolutions into life in a systematic and effective manner. The launch of the six supplements has been highly appreciated by the leaders of the Party, the State, and local leaders.
Talking to reporters of the Journalist & Public Opinion newspaper, Mr. Phan Huy Thang - Member of the Editorial Board, Editorial Secretary, Head of the Editorial Board of Nhan Dan Newspaper said that with 8 pages, Nhan Dan Newspaper daily cannot have enough capacity to convey the contents on socio-economic development (KT-XH), security - national defense (ANQP) of 6 economic regions across the country. Therefore, the publication of 6 supplements meets the urgent need for propaganda.
"In addition to the daily 6 supplements published by Nhan Dan Newspaper, Nhan Dan Electronic Newspaper and Nhan Dan Television also create special columns to ensure the propaganda work of the multimedia communication agency," said Mr. Huy Thang.
According to Mr. Phan Huy Thang, every week, 6 supplements about 6 economic regions are published in 3 days, each day has 4 pages, each region has 2 pages. The content of the supplements focuses on diverse propaganda about many fields of the 6 regions including: Party building, socio-economic development, national defense and security, new rural construction, cultural development - preservation - conservation and digital transformation, etc.
Mr. Phan Huy Thang - Member of the Editorial Board, Editorial Secretary, Head of the Editorial Board - Nhan Dan Newspaper.
To be able to carry out the huge amount of content on these 6 supplements, Mr. Phan Huy Thang said that the way Nhan Dan Newspaper works is to coordinate with the Propaganda Department of localities to develop a propaganda plan to get the fastest and most accurate information, ensuring orientation and consistency with the propaganda viewpoint of local leaders.
“Recently, we have published the first special pages on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the first issue of Nhan Dan Newspaper (March 11, 1951 - March 11, 2023). As of May 8, 2023, it has been exactly 2 months. The initial results have been assessed as very positive. The guiding viewpoints and coordination work on propaganda for socio-economic development and ensuring national defense and security of localities have been conveyed on the special pages very promptly and quickly, contributing to helping the Party Committees, authorities and people of localities better understand the implementation of the 6 Resolutions of the Politburo on socio-economic development and ensuring national defense and security of 6 economic regions,” Mr. Thang emphasized.
In addition, Mr. Thang said that the coordination and information exchange between Nhan Dan Newspaper, Nhan Dan Newspaper's resident reporters and local Party Committees and authorities are very close. When there are information exchange activities, they are very fast. Information on specialized pages is timely, always ensuring topicality.
Assessing the initial effectiveness, Mr. Phan Huy Thang said: “After 2 months, we have realized that if we have an effective way of doing things and find something new in propaganda, then publishing a special page and supplement like this will contribute very positively to the work of communicating policies, especially the Party's Resolutions on socio-economic development and ensuring national security and defense for localities. Publishing a special page like this is very timely, meeting the propaganda needs of localities. In this field, the most important issue is to create highlights; find new things to attract readers” .
Further analysis, Mr. Thang said, it can be seen that the special pages (supplements) of each issue have different orientations and creativity. Also discussing Party building, but how is Party building in the Northern Midlands and Mountains different from Party building in the Central Highlands, different from Party building in the Red River Delta and different from Party building in the Mekong Delta? We must find new things to propagate.
“The main purpose is to reflect good examples of good people and good deeds in localities, good models so that people across the country can learn and follow those models. In addition, it raises difficulties and proposes solutions to overcome existing shortcomings. The role of local Party Committee leaders, Party Cell Secretaries, and local leaders who have good ways of doing things, dare to think, dare to do, dare to take responsibility, is currently in great need of promotion. This requires creativity and diligence from local resident reporters, in coordination with the editorial office to publish and expand typical models,” Mr. Thang stated.
Sharing more about how to do policy communication, Mr. Phan Huy Thang said that each press agency has its own characteristics, its own readers, and different purposes and objectives, so each agency needs to apply appropriate methods in policy communication work with its readers. When building a specialized page, the first thing to consider is finance. For example, online newspapers only have to pay royalties, but for paper newspapers, it is necessary to consider the cost of printing and distributing newspapers. If the calculation is not careful, there will be no money to compensate, because currently many press agencies are financially autonomous.
The "Policy Building" page was built by the Government Electronic Information Portal.
“Recently, Comrade Le Quoc Minh - Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, during his working trips to localities, proposed to arrange working sessions with the local Journalists Association. Through such information exchange meetings, leaders of Nhan Dan Newspaper shared the advantages and difficulties in the process of reporting at Nhan Dan Newspaper. In addition, localities also shared the working characteristics of each locality and each press agency. The model like the one in which Nhan Dan Newspaper recently published 6 supplements, local press agencies found it very interesting, wanted to learn and share. In these meetings, Nhan Dan Newspaper shared many experiences on how to publish such supplements to ensure effectiveness in terms of information, propaganda and economy,” said Mr. Thang.
Building policies and laws is not only building legal documents but also "building human values".
The Government Electronic Information Portal (GeP) and the Government Electronic Newspaper have recently been one of the main media agencies to propagate the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws, domestic and foreign affairs activities; the direction and administration of the Government and the Prime Minister. Since then, it has created a strong media impression on the Government's determination and efforts in direction and administration, the Prime Minister's message in building a creative, honest, action-oriented, serving, open, transparent Government, saying goes hand in hand with doing; removing difficulties, creating a favorable business environment for people and businesses.
In particular, recently, the Government Portal has successfully built the specialized website Xaydungchinhsach.chinhphu.vn to fully and specifically communicate policies to people and businesses. This is also considered a forum for people and businesses on building and implementing policies and laws.
Talking to reporters of the Journalist & Public Opinion newspaper, Mr. Nguyen Hong Sam - General Director of the Government Portal, Editor-in-Chief of the Government E-newspaper said that the idea of building a separate page on policy communication has been cherished for a long time, but for many reasons it has not been able to be realized. When the Prime Minister issued Project 407 on March 30, 2022 on "Organizing policy communication with great impact on society in the process of building legal documents for the period 2022-2027" , the Prime Minister assigned the Government Portal and a number of key press agencies to build columns and communication campaigns on draft policies for people and businesses. The Government Portal was aware that "the big road was open" , the opportunity had come, so it focused on rapid implementation.
“From the formation of ideas, content structure, technical infrastructure construction, content organization, in just over 2 months, the site was launched to serve readers. This site is designed with 4 main sections: Policy and life; Policy consultation; New policy; Policy implementation guidance with the aim of promoting the entire life cycle of policies and laws, from legislative ideas, to the process of building, promulgating, disseminating, and organizing the implementation of policies and laws.
Regarding technology, the Policy Development website is designed based on the most modern web technology, optimally compatible with access tools such as desktops, smartphones, tablets; as well as compatible with social networking platforms, etc. to create the most friendly and convenient experience for users as well as the administration and operations department (including production, publishing, content management, technical management, network security assurance)" , Mr. Sam said.
Regarding the results, according to Mr. Nguyen Hong Sam, since June 20, 2023, the site has attracted more than 23 million visits. The access rate, the rate of new readers, and loyal readers have increased continuously every month at 2 or even 3 digits, and every month is assessed by GoogleAnalytics as having impressive growth. Notably, the amount of traffic to the site is uniform across all time frames, regardless of weekdays, holidays, and there is no difference in access between breaks and working hours.
In addition, the Group Building policies and laws of the specialized page on Facebook also has more than 100,000 members; the specialized page's news posted on Zalo also attracts millions of visits/day...
Sharing with reporters, Mr. Nguyen Hong Sam said that, first of all, we must always clearly define the viewpoint and motto of operation: "Accompanying press - Solution press - Data press - Interactive and sharing press" . In which, "accompanying press" means accompanying the people, businesses, accompanying the team of cadres, civil servants, public employees, accompanying the agencies in the political system.
“Solution journalism” is the content of works that always strive to find solutions to solve problems and difficulties; “data journalism” is a handbook on policies and laws for readers; “interactive and sharing journalism” multiplies the value of information and is also a measure to practice democracy in the process of law making, so that people can know, discuss, do, implement, and enjoy the values that policies and laws bring. All policies are aimed at the people, serving the people.
“We identify each policy and legal document as the crystallization of values to create corridors and standards for all activities. Therefore, policy and law development is not only about developing legal documents but also about “building human values”. Therefore, policy communication is not simply about policy communication but about values and each journalist doing policy communication must “think deeply about his own field” so that each work is truly “a fulcrum, a belief in the information vortex” of contemporary society” , Mr. Sam emphasized.
According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Sam, the "Policy Building" page does not only "sell information" but must aim to "sell wisdom" to serve the public with truly "valuable" spiritual and intellectual food. The information on the page is not only current but also worldly, has "long life" , is a handbook of thinking and action for each agency, organization, and individual to create new values for themselves, contributing to the common development process of society and the country on the path to prosperity and happiness.
To continue to develop the website strongly in the coming time, Mr. Nguyen Hong Sam said that, in addition to building and using the "Advisory Council" team to act as a "bag of wisdom" for the website, the Government Portal is also coordinating with leading technology partners in Vietnam with experts who have been "tested by fire" in the world's leading technology companies to build "Digital Lawyers" and "Digital Tutors" on the artificial intelligence platform towards consulting and guiding the implementation of policies and laws; teaching children in remote areas, teaching Vietnamese to Vietnamese people abroad...
Mr. Nguyen Hong Sam hopes that the policy development website will become an important database system on policy and law development and implementation; a reliable address to promote the strength of all the people, exercise the people's mastery in policy and law development and implementation; so that people can truly know, discuss, do, check, monitor and enjoy the values from the regime's superior policies.
Quoc Tran - Tram Anh
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