Head of Central Propaganda Department: To fight against evil, information must be certain.

"To fight against evil, information must be certain, the fight must be sharp, brave, steadfast, and not be bribed," emphasized Head of the Central Propaganda Department Vo Van Thuong.

Attending the event were comrade Nguyen Thien Nhan, Politburo member, President of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front; comrade Vo Van Thuong, Politburo member, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Propaganda Department; comrade Hoang Vinh Bao, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications; and many leaders of ministries, sectors and press agencies.

Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Propaganda Department Vo Van Thuong especially noted the current state of degradation within the press itself.

Speaking at the seminar, Head of the Central Propaganda Department Vo Van Thuong affirmed: "The fight against and prevention of ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation is a very important task to build and rectify the Party to build an increasingly clean and strong Party.

The 12th Central Committee Resolution 4 clearly stated the need to promote the role and enhance the sense of responsibility of press agencies and press management agencies in the fight against corruption, waste, ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation, "self-evolution" and "self-transformation". This is an honor and also a heavy responsibility. Each newspaper and journalist must be clearly aware of this responsibility.

Also according to Head of the Central Propaganda Department Vo Van Thuong, with the role of a powerful ideological weapon, in recent times, the press has actively taken the lead in participating in detecting negative manifestations and behaviors, waste, corruption, ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation. But there are also some things that the press has not done very well.

Member of the Politburo, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Nguyen Thien Nhan: "Without the participation of the people, it is impossible to succeed in the fight against ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation. It is necessary to promote the voice of the people through press agencies. The press must convey the main contents of the Resolution of the 12th Central Committee, making people and cadres clearly understand that if we do not fight against ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation now, there will be no tomorrow. This is a threat to the survival of the Party and the country. The press also needs to clarify the processes, paths and mechanisms that help self-perpetuate corrupt, negative and degenerate behaviors that are harmful to the country."

Firstly, there are still limitations in the content of propaganda information in the press about the fight against ideological, political, moral and lifestyle degradation. "Without mechanically saying 7 pink and 3 dark colors, but for a newspaper to summarize a year of 156 news articles and only have 3-4 good news articles does not accurately reflect the situation of society," said comrade Vo Van Thuong.

The imbalance is also in the fact that when propagating the good, the content is still limited, the typicality is sometimes not high, the spread is not large, it is not posted regularly, it is posted in places and times that are not read much. The posting of information to fight against the bad is often not up to standard, sometimes it is just reporting on the bad and then leaving it unsolved, the number of cases discovered is still small, the fighting spirit is not sharp, the information is not solid, the courage and steadfastness are sometimes shaken, even bribed.

Second, in reality, there are also signs of degradation within the press itself. "There is a piece of information that I read that I hope is not true. That is, Indochina Research Company has just announced the results of a survey (conducted in November 2016 with 700 people in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) stating that, in the 10 surveyed professions, journalists are ranked as the most distrusted group (ranked number 1 in the 10 professions, second is real estate brokers).

If this research is truly well-founded, then this is something we must reflect on ourselves, first of all by using the method of self-criticism and criticism to truly be exemplary, comply with the law, and have a foundation of knowledge so that the article can truly have value in moving society. This is an issue that must be learned from," comrade Vo Van Thuong shared.

The Head of the Central Propaganda Department also emphasized that the current situation of abusing press freedom to serve interest groups is increasingly serious. In reality, there has been a phenomenon of exploiting the fight against corruption for personal gain.

The "fish sauce" case was prominent, causing a stir in society, and was exposed for everyone to see. But the monetary value of that case was much smaller than many cases that had not been exposed. On the other hand, "there is still a phenomenon of reporters going to this company or that company to say that there is a problem, if they do not accept this newspaper as an information sponsor, tomorrow another newspaper will report the news and it will affect the company. This is a negative form of taking advantage of the press, to put it bluntly, it is blackmail", comrade Vo Van Thuong said with concern.

Overview of the discussion on the afternoon of January 6, 2016 in Hanoi.

In order for the press to better promote its role in the fight against ideological, political, and moral degradation in the coming time, Head of the Central Propaganda Department Vo Van Thuong pointed out a number of things that need to be done.

Specifically, the governing bodies and press leaders must more deeply grasp the spirit of Resolution 4 of the 12th Central Committee, and must fully recognize the manifestations of ideological, political, moral, and lifestyle degradation, and the manifestations of "self-evolution" and "self-transformation".

The press needs to propagate so that people can see that this is a fierce and complicated struggle, not to the point that it is impossible to resist or fight, but if it is not done well and does not produce results, it will affect the survival of the Party and the regime.

In addition, the work of directing, guiding and providing information to the press must be unified, transparent, regular and timely. It is necessary to further strengthen the direction of the Party and the management of the State in press activities. Improve the quality of grassroots Party organizations in press agencies. Each newspaper must strengthen the education of its staff to overcome internal degradation. Press agencies need to increase the number of good news articles, discover many truly outstanding examples with widespread influence. In the fight against evil, the information must be certain, the fight must be sharp, brave, steadfast, and not be bribed.

Head of the Central Propaganda Department Vo Van Thuong also expressed his high agreement with the opinion of Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Nguyen Thien Nhan on creating a mechanism for the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, the Vietnam Journalists Association and the Central Propaganda Department to sit down every 3 months to compile statistics on incidents reported by newspapers to report to the relevant agencies for research and resolution.

According to Infonet