Policy Communication - Perspectives from the Press

Attending the conference were leaders of the Vietnam Journalists Association, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Information and Communications, Quang Ninh and Ha Nam provinces, and leaders of a number of press agencies, magazines, and press management agencies.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Loi, Permanent Vice President of the Vietnam Journalists Association, shared that the Conference is a place for leaders of press management agencies and press agencies to meet and discuss issues as well as pressures and challenges that newsrooms are and will have to face in the constantly changing flow of press and media life, thereby jointly proposing and proposing solutions to overcome them. In recent years, policy communication work has been increasingly focused on, becoming an indispensable part of State communication activities in general and Government communication in particular.

The Permanent Vice President of the Vietnam Journalists Association added that it must be acknowledged that policy communication work still has many shortcomings. Many localities, ministries and sectors still take policy communication work lightly; lack of planning, lack of initiative and lack of professionalism in providing information. As a result, in recent times, there have been many incidents and communication crises in a number of areas, affecting the implementation of the State's policies, guidelines and laws.

The forum "Policy communication - Perspectives from press agencies" includes two discussion sessions with the topics: "Press - An extension of policy communication" and "Mechanisms and resources for the press to carry out policy communication".

At the conference, delegates had many comments and discussions to promote policy communication.

Mr. Le Quoc Minh, Member of the Party Central Committee, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, Chairman of the Vietnam Journalists Association, said that we need to understand correctly about policy communication, what is the difference between policy propaganda and policy communication. In fact, in implementing policy communication in recent times, what are the steps forward, what are the limitations, thereby proposing specific solutions to further improve the effectiveness of policy communication. We need to clearly understand the role, importance as well as the methods of the press in disseminating, spreading, and bringing issued policies to all classes of people, helping policies to enter real life. There needs to be coordination between state management agencies, functional agencies and press agencies in implementing policy communication; there are economic and technological solutions in improving the effectiveness of policy communication at press agencies...

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Lam, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications, Directive No. 07/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister on strengthening policy communication requires ministries, branches and localities to innovate methods and forms of providing information to the press. This innovation is extremely necessary. We must focus on the team working on specialized policy communication at ministries, branches and localities. Regarding policy communication, some press agencies still lack creativity, the specificity of each press agency has not been fully promoted; there is a lack of critical thinking, evaluation and forecasting. Many editorial offices have not proactively developed a systematic policy communication plan... Policy communication is the process of conveying messages, mechanisms and policies of the Government and administrative agencies at all levels to the people. Effective policy communication will help people understand, participate, cooperate and agree in the policy implementation process.