Lam Hồng wrote this Vietnamese op-ed, published in Luat Khoa Magazine on January 3, 2025. Jason Nguyen translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.
During the last week of December 2024, “Phụ Nữ Chủ Nhật” (Women’s Sunday Magazine) bids farewell to its readers.
No one knows the real reason why one of the country’s best-selling weekend publications ceased operations. Its final cover reads:
“After 28 years — it is now time for the woman who dressed in a tiring outfit every Sunday, who is like Scheherazade that has finished telling her 1,001 tales over 1,001 nights, to take her leave.”
Amid the tense atmosphere of government “streamlining,” such developments often lead to speculation about media outlet mergers or closures.
On Dec. 31, 2024, as Vietnamese people prepared for the 2025 New Year countdown, the National Assembly Television announced its final broadcast after a decade on air.
It was also the night when Nhân Dân Television signed off after more than nine years.
The host of Nhân Dân Television did not forget to emphasize that the channel had made a “modest, humble contribution to the development of the nation’s press, promoting, encouraging, and motivating the people to follow the Party’s directives and the state’s policies.”
Under the streamlining policy, Nhân Dân Television, the National Assembly Television, Thông Tấn Television, VOV Television, and VTC Television were all shutdown, with their functions transferred to Vietnam Television (VTV).
Yet, despite widespread speculation that it would merge with Tiền Phong and be downgraded to a magazine or special edition, Thanh Niên newspaper survived.
And what about the newspaper called Tuổi Trẻ?
With the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs set to be dissolved, will Dân Trí, which operates under this ministry, be transferred to the Ministry of Home Affairs?
VTV has confirmed it will only assume the functions and duties of the dissolved stations. Will it absorb the thousands of employees from these agencies?
Considering that virtually all media in Vietnam belong to the state — and the state has the right to merge or dissolve them — this is simply business as usual.
Yet, many professional state journalists will lose their jobs in this grand “streamlining” operation. These so-called “soldiers on the information battlefield” will fade away like nameless pawns on a political chessboard.
Even if they survive this ordeal, another hurdle still awaits — the press restructuring plan, outlined in Decision 362/2019 and signed by former Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
Under this plan, Vietnam’s media landscape has already shrunk from 800 to 500 press agencies.
The number of press agencies in Hanoi alone has halved from 20 to 10. In Ho Chi Minh City, the number has dropped from 28 to 19.
By 2025, the two largest cities in Vietnam are expected to conduct further streamlining, leaving only four print newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television broadcasters.
However, both cities have sought a “special mechanism” to maintain their current numbers. In August 2024, the Ministry of Information and Communications promised to review this request. Yet, few people believed the ministry could secure its own survival, as it is set to be dissolved and merged into the Ministry of Science and Technology under the streamlining policy.
Even if these publications survive the “streamlining” by the end of 2025, leading press agencies like Tiền Phong, Thanh Niên, and Tuổi Trẻ may not.
Perhaps Pháp Luật TP.HCM, Phụ Nữ TP.HCM newspapers and many others will become mere shadows of their former selves, the remnants of a bygone golden era.
The first thing worth mentioning is that despite facing an existential threat, the state press remains unwaveringly obedient, maintaining a centrist, self-righteous stance toward the Communist Party of Vietnam’s policies. But is this irony—or tragedy?
Rumors suggest that To Lam wants to tighten control over state institutions in general, paving the way for private enterprises — just as he is squeezing state media to make room for private journalism. The excess journalists from state-run newspapers could, in the future, establish independent media and attract talent.
If this is true, then history may one day remember To Lam not as an authoritarian leader but as a reformist.
But before the public can celebrate such a prospect, many professional journalists are about to be caught in the whirlwind of unemployment.
Some readers will look back at their beloved publications with nostalgia, remembering the names that shaped their memories.
Journalism schools — already scarce — may face even tighter restrictions.
Fresh graduates in journalism will find fewer opportunities to enter a profession once hailed as the “Fourth Estate.”
And none of them are at fault.
The second thing worth mentioning is that no one objected.
Not a single journalist or newspaper dared challenge the policy—perhaps because it is a party directive. Many lobby fiercely behind the scenes to protect their industry, yet none speak out against it.
Journalists can fight for the rights of others, expose corruption, and bring down politicians. But they can never claim rights for themselves. Resistance has been crushed; no one dares to awaken.
Even their proclaimed mission of “serving the reader” falls short—no matter how much readers love a newspaper, they cannot save it.
The state press remains obedient, upholding party interests and state policies. But from the start, their unwavering devotion was misdirected.