Journalists aim to boost innovation

The press needs to focus on producing content for popular mobile devices, such as smartphones, in order to approach young readers who comprise the largest segment of the Vietnamese population.

Le Duy Truyen, deputy general director of the Vietnam News Agency, stated this at a conference yesterday in Ha Noi. The event, titled Smartphone with Modern Media, was attended by journalists from Viet Nam and South Korea who shared their knowledge and experience with new media. Truyen said that newspapers and reporters should update their skills and innovate with technology to meet readers' demands.


Kwon Tae-sun, Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Korea, shared the story of the US-based online newspaper. Initially published seven years ago as a blog on political issues, the Huffington Post has become the No 1 online newspaper in the US, with 95 million daily page views. The newspaper invited bloggers who can analyse and have good writing skills to work as its columnists. It considers comments on stories as adding value to news.

The Huffington Post Korea was founded last February as a joint effort of The Huffington Post and South Korea's Hangyore. Kwon said that the newspaper targets readers in the 25-44 age group, and provides news they would be interested in.

Vietnamplus online newspaper editor-in-chief Le Quoc Minh spoke about the rise of mobile news. When he attended an international conference in 2010, only five newspapers said that they had a mobile version of the newspapers, he said. But just a year later, all those newspapers had come up with their mobile versions.

Minh says that Viet Nam started producing mobile news very soon, even before some foreign newspapers. "However, we did not develop as fast as they did," he said.

"At Vietnamplus, reporters are equipped with smartphones and know how to use it for news coverage. The newspaper, along with the Zing online newspaper, are the only ones in Viet Nam using flycams in news reporting," Minh added.

According to him, new concepts are emerging in journalism, with help from technology, such as mojo (mobile journalism) and social journalism.

Vice chairman of the Viet Nam Journalists Association Ha Minh Hue agreed, adding that news reporting via smartphones is a new trend. He hoped that newspapers also spent time researching and learning from each other's experience to find suitable ways for development.

The event was organised by the Vietnam News Agency and was sponsored by Samsung Electronics Viet Nam.