Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the event (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked theVietnam News Agency (VNA) to maintain its position as a trustworthy informationcentre of the Party and State and a prestigious news agency in theregion.
During a ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the agency in Hanoi onSeptember 13, PM Phuc lauded generations of the VNA’s leaders, reporters,technicians and staff for making great contributions to the cause of nationalconstruction and defence. He also expressed his gratitude for its nearly 260journalist-martyrs, accounting for two-thirds of the country’s total, forlaying down their lives on the mission.
He recalled that historical moments of the nation, covered by VNA’sjournalist-soldiers, became known and supported by the world. Its reporters andstaff were present on almost battlefields, overcame a raft of challenges tosend news and photos about the brave struggle of the nation in a rapid andobjective manner, thus inspiring a strong will to regain national independenceand reunification and creating a motivation for emulation movementsnationwide.
Building on achievements over the past 75 years, the VNA needs to take thevanguard in information and popularisation work, including disseminating theParty policies and guidelines, the State laws, contributing to bringing theParty and National Assembly’s resolutions, the Government’s programmes andaction plans into life, he said.
He added that the VNA also needs to promptly reflect public aspirations, fightagainst negative behaviours, wrongful allegations by hostile forces, firmlysafeguard the Party’s ideological foundation, protect the Party and State’spolicies and guidelines as well as territorial sovereignty, maintainsocio-political stability, contributing to orienting public opinions andstrengthening public trust on the Party and State leadership.
He stressed the VNA's immediate significant task of raising public awareness ofthe Party congresses at all levels, towards the 13th National Party Congress,covering opinions of people from walks of life on draft documents and reportswhich are to be submitted to the National Party Congress.
He suggested that the VNA should keep its own identity and core value as a“bank of mainstream information” for the domestic press system and the publicat home and abroad, in service of the Party and State leaders andthink-tanks.
The PM assigned each VNA journalist to keep improving political mettle,professional skills and knowledge to carry the sector forward, thus deservingdedication by the past generations for national revolutionary cause.
According to him, the VNA needs to continue adopting technological advances todevelop itself into a modern multimedia agency using digital transformation andartificial intelligence.
On the occasion, PM Phuc, who is also Chairman of the Emulation – CommendationCouncil, presented the first-class Labour Order, to the VNA.
Addressing the ceremony, VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi said on September15, 1945, from the Bach Mai wireless transmission station in Hanoi, the fulltext of the Independence Declaration and the list of the members of provisionalGovernment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were aired in Vietnamese,English and French. The event marked the birth of a news agency of theDemocratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. That wasalso the content of the first transmissions by the VNA, known as Vietnam Thongtan xa (VNTTX) at the time.
After national reunification, in May 1976, realising an instruction by theParty Central Committee’s Secretariat, the VNTTX and the Liberation NewsAgency - the official news organisation run by the South Vietnam NationalLiberation Front, which was established on October 12, 1960, merged.
One year later, the National Assembly Standing Committee issued a resolutionapproving the change of the Vietnamese name of the agency from “Vietnam Thongtan xa” into “Thong tan xa Vietnam”.
He affirmed that in anycircumstance, the VNA's information always gear toward the goal ofindependence, freedom, peace, national development and people'swell-being.
During the 1980s and 1990s, aseries of dailies and weeklies in Vietnamese and foreign languages debuted andwere welcomed by the public such as Sports & Culture newspaper, Viet NamNews and Le Courrier du Vietnam.
In the 21st century, the VNA set the target of diversifying transmissionchannels and expanding international cooperation. With the birth of electronicnewswire VietnamPlus, television channel VNews, infographic news, 12 bilingualnews and photos for ethnic minorities, megastory published on VietnamPlus, itsapp and social media site, the agency’s news have been available to the publicat home and abroad amid digital era.
The VNA’s news units for foreign services have also popularised the image ofVietnam as an active and responsible member of the international community,fulfilling mission of a key national press agency for external affairs, hesaid.
The General Director informed that the VNA produced a number of high-qualitynews products winning awards at home and abroad. This week, its “Say no to FakeNews” project won the top prize in the category “Best Project for NewsLiteracy” – one of ten categories within the framework of the Asian DigitalMedia 2020 Awards presented by WAN-IFRA, the World Association of NewsPublishers.
With such great contributions, the VNA was also awarded with a number of Partyand State decorations such as Gold Star Order, Ho Chi Minh Order, IndependenceOrder, the titles of labour hero in renovation period and hero of people’sarmed forces.
With a contingent of about 2,300 officials, reporters, editors, technicians andstaff in 63 cities and provinces nationwide and 30 key areas in fivecontinents, the VNA currently provides thousands of news stories, articles andphotos for domestic and foreign media outlets each day, serving the Party andState leaders and the public with nearly 70 news products in various forms. Italso cooperates with more than 40 press agencies worldwide, making effectivecontributions to ties between Vietnam and countries worldwide during Vietnam’sintegration process, he said.
On the occasion, PartyGeneral Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong also sent a basket of flowersand letter of congratulations to the VNA./.
