Improving the quality of Nguyen Luong Bang Journalism Award

The annual press awards of the Provincial Journalists Association will be merged with the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Awards to form the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Awards, which will be reviewed and awarded annually. In the photo: Comrades: Head of the Provincial Party Committee's Propaganda Department Nguyen Quang Phuc, Head of the Provincial Party Committee's Mass Mobilization Department Nguyen Van Phu awarding A prizes to the authors who won the 2021 press awards of the Provincial Journalists Association (documentary photo)

By allowing the Provincial Journalists Association Press Award to be merged with the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award, named the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award and held annually, the quality of the provincial press awards will certainly be improved.

Mission Accomplished

Over the years, Hai Duong has had two parallel press awards. These are the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award, held every five years, and the Provincial Journalists Association Press Award, held annually.

The Nguyen Luong Bang Journalism Award is named after the famous soldier, revolutionary activist, Vice President Nguyen Luong Bang, a native of Hai Duong, founder of Cong Nong newspaper, the first revolutionary newspaper in Hai Duong. This is also the highest journalism award of the province, for outstanding journalistic works about Hai Duong by journalists and writers inside and outside the province, organized every 5 years, and has been going on for more than 20 years. After 5 awards, the Nguyen Luong Bang Journalism Award has had nearly 600 authors and groups of authors inside and outside the province submitting nearly 1,000 entries, in 4 groups of genres: reflection, political commentary, news, press photos in the forms of visual journalism, print journalism, spoken journalism, and electronic journalism.

Most of the works submitted to the Nguyen Luong Bang Journalism Award are of good quality, deeply reflecting the difficulties, obstacles, highlights, thorny aspects in social life, negative phenomena in many fields, receiving special attention from public opinion, associated with each period, the process of construction, development, and innovation of Hai Duong in particular, and the country in general. Along with that are a series of journalistic works that breathe life, reflect positive aspects, honor typical individuals and groups, encourage and motivate the social community to promote and expand good values, create a foundation and strength in the cause of innovation. Each award period has marked the growth, maturity, and professionalism of the journalism team, the smooth coordination of press agencies, the increase in the number of works, and the diversity of genres, topics, and forms of expression. Thereby further affirming the prestige of the award.

Along with the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award, for many years, the Provincial Journalists Association has maintained and organized the Provincial Journalists Association Press Award annually. This is also a useful playground for journalists in the province to have the opportunity to demonstrate their talents. Every year, the award is launched and organized seriously, closely following the program, plan, rules, regulations... The topics of the works are all associated with important political events of the country and locality, promptly reflecting many current issues, urgent and prominent issues in society, including newly arising issues, having the effect of propaganda, encouragement, motivation, contributing to the fight against negativity, criticizing the bad, receiving the sympathy and support of the majority of people, creating a positive effect from public opinion. Thereby, affirming the positive role of Hai Duong press in the innovation process, affirming the maturity and professionalism of the team of journalists in the province.

New playground

It can be affirmed that, besides the results and achievements of the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award and the Provincial Journalists Association Press Award, there are still limitations that need to be overcome and changed to further improve the quality of the province's press awards.

The Nguyen Luong Bang Journalism Award is held every 5 years, so many topical issues are invested in by journalists to collect information and express, but when the award is considered, they are no longer topical compared to other works, so they are not highly appreciated. Some authors, when it comes to submitting their works, cannot even remember which works they should have submitted in the past 5 years to participate in the award. Due to the nature of being held every 5 years, the value of the award is still low compared to some other awards, and it does not really encourage authors to invest in their works to participate in the award...

The annual Provincial Journalists Association Press Awards have very low prize values ​​due to limited funding. Before 2020, the prize value of the A-prize winning work was much lower than the royalties for high-quality, topical articles published in Hai Duong newspapers or broadcast on Hai Duong Radio and Television. Although since 2020, the Provincial Journalists Association has made efforts to call for socialization to double the prize value compared to before, the prize value of the A-prize winning work is still low, not commensurate with the effort of the author. Therefore, the number of press works submitted to the annual awards is still low, many authors have not really paid attention to investing in creating high-quality press works to participate in the awards...

With the above-mentioned limitations of the two press awards over many years, the Provincial Party Standing Committee's permission to combine the two press awards into the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award, which will be considered and awarded annually on the occasion of the anniversary of Vietnam Revolutionary Press Day, June 21, will certainly be a new playground and new motivation for each journalist inside and outside the province to create high-quality press works.

The Provincial Journalists Association will continue to promote its many years of experience in organizing press awards to advise the Provincial People's Committee to organize the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award in the direction of increasingly improving the quality of the award. Hopefully, the Nguyen Luong Bang Press Award will truly attract journalists inside and outside the province to participate, encourage authors to create high-quality press works, promptly reflect all aspects of social life, accompany the Party Committee, government and people in the province to successfully carry out all tasks and goals of socio-economic development, and build Hai Duong to become more and more prosperous.

Captain