Two Nghe An Newspaper reporters honored at the 2019 National Press Awards ceremony

Art performance to welcome the Award Ceremony. Photo: Thanh Le

On the evening of June 21, the 2019 National Press Awards Ceremony took place solemnly at the Hanoi Opera House. Comrade Nguyen Xuan Phuc - Politburo member, Prime Minister attended the ceremony and presented the awards.

Also attending were former General Secretary Nong Duc Manh,Former Chairman of the National AssemblyNguyen Sinh Hung.

Also attending the ceremony were Politburo members: Tran Quoc Vuong - Standing member of the Secretariat; Vo Van Thuong - Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Propaganda Department; Nguyen Thien Nhan - Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee;The Party Central Committee Secretaries include: Tran Thanh Man - Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front; Phan Dinh Trac - Head of the Central Internal Affairs Commission; Nguyen Hoa Binh - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Nguyen Xuan Thang - Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council, Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics; General Luong Cuong - Director of the General Department of Politics of the Vietnam People's Army.

Also attending the ceremony were members of the Party Central Committee;Leaders, former leaders of ministries, departments, branches, and localities; veteran journalists, leaders of press agencies, and excellent journalists who won the 2019 National Press Award.

The 2019 National Press Awards had 103 winning works, including 10 A prizes, 20 B prizes, 41 C prizes and 32 Encouragement prizes. These are excellent works selected from 1,602 eligible works of press agencies nationwide.

At the 2019 National Press Awards, Nghe An Newspaper had 1 work that won the C prize, which was the 5-part series "Plants that help alleviate poverty but have not yet created livelihoods" by 2 authors Thanh Le - Thanh Quynh.

Comrade Thuan Huu - Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, President of the Vietnam Journalists Association, Chairman of the National Press Awards Council 2019 spoke at the Award Ceremony. Photo: Thanh Le

Commenting on the 14th National Press Awards 2019, Comrade Thuan Huu - Member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association, Chairman of the National Press Awards Council 2019 said that over the past 14 years, the National Press Awards organized by the Vietnam Journalists Association have become increasingly professional, methodical and of high quality. This is a prestigious press award, honoring truly outstanding works and authors, enthusiastically responded to by the press community nationwide; and highly appreciated by the Party, State and people for its significance, quality and influence on social life.

Party and State leaders attended the ceremony. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

Many works have deeply reflected on the fields of Party building, building and consolidating the political system, building new rural areas and restructuring agriculture, sustainable poverty reduction, especially hot current issues such as the fight against corruption, waste, handling of officials who commit violations in personnel work, violations in land management, food hygiene and safety issues, administrative reform, good people and good deeds.

Many works are presented methodically, elaborately, professionally, using new forms of expression of modern journalism. The quality of local journalism is improving day by day. The gap between central and local newspapers and radio stations is increasingly shortened, with many localities excelling.

Participating in the 2019 National Press Awards were more than 110 association-level units and 230 collaborators, with 59/63 Provincial and Municipal Journalists Associations, 18/19 Inter-associations, and 34 affiliated associations.

The preliminary jury selected and presented to the final jury a list of 140 works in 11 categories, selected from 1,602 works eligible for the Award. This is the year with the highest number of entries ever.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Standing member of the Secretariat Tran Quoc Vuong presented the A prizes to the authors. Photo: Van Dong

Speaking at the Award Ceremony, in the joyful atmosphere of the 95th anniversary of Vietnam Revolutionary Press Day, on behalf of the Party and State leaders, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc respectfully sent his best wishes and highly appreciated the great contributions of generations of journalists across the country, especially warmly congratulating the journalists honored to receive the 2019 National Press Awards.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the award ceremony. Photo: Thanh Le

The Prime Minister assessed that over the past years, the country's press has closely followed the Party's policies and guidelines, vividly reflecting all aspects of political, economic and social life; actively propagating good values, new factors, good models and practices, praising good people and good deeds; bringing the image of the country and people of Vietnam as friendly, peaceful and amicable to international friends.

Journalists are the vanguard soldiers on the front line of the struggle to refute false and distorted arguments, contributing to protecting the independence, sovereignty and sacred territorial integrity of the Fatherland, as well as protecting the Party and the socialist regime; actively fighting against corruption, waste and negativity; criticizing signs of moral and lifestyle degradation in society, actively contributing to the socio-economic development, strengthening national defense and security in recent times.

In particular, in the first months of this year during the Covid-19 pandemic, the press agencies conveyed the Government's strong messages every day and every hour: "Fighting the epidemic is like fighting the enemy", carrying out the "dual" task of both fighting the epidemic and developing the economy.

“Journalists and reporters have not been afraid of hardships, accompanying the frontline forces in the fight against the epidemic, creating consensus among the whole society. This is an important factor helping our country become one of the countries that effectively control the Covid-19 epidemic, enhancing its position in the world,” the Prime Minister emphasized.

Awarding prizes to authors and groups of authors who won C prize. Photo: Van Dong

The Prime Minister hopes that, promoting the good results achieved through 14 times of organization, in the coming time, the Vietnam Journalists Association will continue to innovate and better organize the annual National Press Awards, raising the level of the awards in both scale and quality of works; attracting more and more excellent press works in both ideological content and form of expression; honoring and promptly and appropriately rewarding members and journalists.

Sharing the difficulties of press agencies in the press planning stage, the Prime Minister affirmed that the Party and State always create conditions for the press to continue to develop, make more contributions to the country's revolutionary cause, and be worthy of the trust of the Party and people./.