Hanoi (VNA) -𒁃 COVID-19 has changed the way society consumes news and content in the last two years, forcing the journalism industry to go digital to maintain viewers and readers. Besides the exciting experience, digital transformation remains a challenge to most of press agencies in Vietnam.

A national workshop on the theoretical and practical issues related to digital transformation in the Vietnamese press was held in Hanoi on June 11. The event was jointly held by the School of Journalism and Communication under the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University – Hanoi, and the Journal of Information and Communications under the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Formidable challenges

👍 Learning experience from the world’s top TV channels, journalist Nguyen Le Tan, Director of VTC Now – a member of the Vietnam Television Corporation under the Voice of Vietnam, and his partners took in experiences from the world’s top TV networks and decided to start an internet TV station.

They felt strongly that they were initiating the miracle of digital transformation after they earned the right to broadcast all sporting events within the ASEAN Games (ASIAD) 2018.

The better the content, the more subscribers VTC Now got. However, this was a big challenge for VTC Now since they had to cover huge operation costs.

”Millions of likes, thousands of views mean nothing to us because the way the advertisement market operates is quite different from theories of modern digital transformation models”, Tan said.

Meanwhile, journalist Tran Tien Duan, Editor-in-chief of VietnamPlus e-newspaper under the Vietnam News Agency, admitted that going digital is tough for most of media outlets in Vietnam.

Many press agencies, especially small and medium-sized as well as local press organisations, fail to meet requirements in technical infrastructure and human resources to boost digitalisation.

“Nowadays, press agencies are facing formidable challenges. They have to develop new digital products, solve the problem that tech giants like Google and Facebook are dominating digital advertising”, while working to ensure cyber security and fight against fake news”, Duan said.

Speaking at the workshop, Head of the Press Department under the Ministry of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Lam emphasised that in the current technology trend, the press must find a new home in the digital space. Instead of reading newspapers traditionally as before, most readers today access information from press agencies randomly through suggested algorithms and news. Compared to investing in infrastructure by itself, Vietnamese press agencies can choose a more pragmatic option, that is to use third-party infrastructure, but must control issues such as cash flow shared from the platform, protecting digital content resources of press agencies, etc., he noted.  He also added that the Ministry of Information and Communications will develop detailed digital transformation strategy, and each press agency will implement it according to its own needs. Meanwhile, the Vietnam Journalists' Association will organise training courses and exchanges on digital transformation-related content. Sharing VTC Now’s solution, Tan said it is the human resources that play a decisive role in producing good content, not big investment in advanced technologies.

Digital transformation is not a revolution in terms of technologies and equipment, he said, emphasising media agencies should change their frame of mind.         

ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ “Collecting data about readers is of utmost importance. If we fail to find our target readers, we are unable to spread our products even if it is great content”, he said.

With traditional press, readers will go out to buy printed newspaper, this means “readers go to find news”. Meanwhile, as for online newspaper, “news goes to find readers” thanks to the computers’ algorism, Tan added. At the event, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan (People) Newspaper Le Quoc Minh said that over the past time, the story of digital transformation has been mentioned in most fields, and many newsrooms and that reporters do not have much experience and knowledge of digital transformation. He underscored that digital transformation is a must for press agencies if they want to survive because readers tend to move away from traditional platforms and switch to new ones./.