"Admission scores are not a factor in evaluating the quality of journalism human resources"

At a recent working session of the Central Propaganda Department's Working Group with the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University, Hanoi), assessing the future trends of journalism, Mr. Le Quoc Minh, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association said that journalism of the future will change a lot, requiring completely different skills compared to what is currently taught at university.

“The future of journalism not only requires good writers, photographers, and videographers, but also journalists who know how to combine elements: journalism, technology, soft skills - things that journalism schools are not really interested in. Therefore, journalism training also needs to change.”

Mr. Le Quoc Minh frankly admitted that entrance scores are not a factor to evaluate the quality of journalism human resources. Even those who graduate with the highest GPA are not sure to become good journalists in the future.

“Journalism is like medicine, it requires people who have a lot of practice, experience and the ability to “smell” news,” said Mr. Minh.

Mr. Minh also pointed out the misconception that journalism graduates, when working in newspaper offices, will have an advantage over students from other majors. However, in reality, although journalism students may have better reporting skills, their in-depth knowledge in each field cannot be as solid as that of those who have studied in other fields.

“It is not difficult to develop journalism skills, but developing specialized skills in new fields is what press agencies really need. For example, a journalist writing about stocks needs to have in-depth knowledge of stocks; an economic journalist must also be proficient in reading financial reports.”

For these reasons, according to Mr. Minh, most university graduates working in press agencies must undergo 6 months of retraining to ensure their skills are in line with the regulations of the editorial office. Not to mention, if working in press agencies with specific characteristics, in niche fields, will require more special training.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tong Van Thanh, Head of the Press and Publishing Department, Central Propaganda Department, said that for journalism majors, it is impossible to require a student to immediately become a good journalist, with in-depth knowledge in a certain field. This requires continuous training by the press agency.

Mr. Thanh emphasized the smooth coordination between the school and press agencies right from the second year. But he also frankly acknowledged that the practice time of journalism students is currently very limited.

“Journalism students going on internships is still very formal. The number of articles by students published in mainstream newspapers during this period is also very small,” Mr. Thanh said.

Another issue that Mr. Thanh noticed while working with some journalism training institutions was that many lecturers were afraid that “journalism would lose to social networks”. But according to Mr. Thanh, the ultimate core value that journalists bring is not to compete with social networks to report news quickly, but to report news that is standard, authentic, ethical and humane.

“If journalism determines that it is a race with social networks, it will never win. The only way journalism can win over social networks is through standard values ​​and the authenticity of information.”

Agreeing with this view, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Phan Tam said that the core of journalism is to provide original, objective, honest, and comprehensive information about a certain event. Meanwhile, media and social networks tend to exploit “secondary” products from journalism rather than serving the mission of revolutionary journalism.

Regarding journalism training, Mr. Phan Tam said that there needs to be a connection between training institutions and the labor market and job positions. Institutions must be aware of which agencies they are training human resources for, what job positions are available, what knowledge and skills those positions require, and on that basis, they can provide the right and accurate training.

“In my opinion, journalism is also a profession. Schools themselves must consider themselves as training a profession. Currently, journalism training institutions provide more academic knowledge than professional skills. Therefore, when restructuring the program, I think it is necessary to consider placing a higher proportion on skills training,” said Mr. Tam.