Cartoons - an effective anti-corruption tool of the press

On the morning of October 28, the Center for Communication and Community Education (MEC) organized a workshop on “The combativeness of anti-corruption cartoons in the press: Current situation and solutions,” to support creative activities and improve knowledge about anti-corruption cartoons among journalists and artists.

The cartoon by artist Le Phuong won first prize in the contest "Drawing cartoons on the topic of publicity and transparency in the press". (Source: dangcongsan.vn)

The workshop is the beginning of phase 2 of the “Cartoon Drawing Contest on the topic of publicity and transparency in the press” organized by MEC with the support of the “Anti-Corruption Initiative” Program.

Mr. Mai Phan Loi, Head of the Contest Secretariat, said that the first contest attracted a large number of professional and amateur artists to participate.

Most of the paintings have no commentary but have the power to generalize, connect real events and express them in an easy-to-understand way, creating highly combative satirical laughter.

There have been 198 cartoons published in the media. With sharp, satirical techniques that are especially attractive and have a wide reach, these cartoons will create pressure and expectations for the entire political system and the entire population to participate in the fight against corruption.

This is a new front in the fight against corruption.

However, there are still some works that are off-topic, misuse words, abstract ideas, are too complicated, too simple, sketchy, honest, difficult to understand, or use personal life, real images that may violate the law... reducing the fighting spirit of the cartoon.

Artist Le Phuong, who recently won first prize in the “Caricature Drawing Contest on Public and Transparent Themes in the Press” said that caricatures flourished during the war years. Now, caricatures have recovered and flourished, gaining more public attention. The press has taken advantage of caricatures more.

However, to reach international level, Vietnamese caricature still has a gap in both form and ideas.

Most artists are freelancers and collaborate with newspapers, while artists on the newspaper payroll are very rare.

Cartooning is a fun job, but in reality it is a tough job because the income is not high and it requires a lot of intelligence. If the artist does not change his techniques and ideas, he will easily get bored and repeat himself.

According to Vietnam+