Draft revised Press Law: Proposed amendments and supplements to some new contents

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications , in fact, the Press Law has quite complete, clear, and detailed regulations, creating favorable conditions for professional press activities, while creating a legal corridor for agencies, organizations, and individuals to understand and cooperate, support press agencies, and reporters' work.

However, after more than six years of implementation and in the context of the strong and rapid development of science , technology and modern media, which has led to higher requirements and demands in the field of journalism, it is necessary to perfect legal regulations for timely and appropriate adjustment and management; a number of provisions of the Press Law have revealed some limitations and inadequacies, failing to meet the practical requirements of journalism activities.

Draft law amending and supplementing some new content, image 1 — Illustration photo.

From there, the Ministry of Information and Communications proposed to build a Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Press Law with six policies.

Policy 1, develop a press group model with the goal of forming large press agencies with sufficient resources to play a leading role, acting as a pillar in orienting information.

Policy 2: Completing regulations on the scope of information of press agencies contributes to promoting the effectiveness of press activities and ensuring implementation according to principles and purposes.

Policy 3, perfecting regulations for scientific journals to develop healthily and properly. The goal of the policy is to create a good environment for scientific journals to develop healthily and seriously; scientific journals are not transformed into regular newspapers and magazines; and the situation of "privatization" of the press is overcome.

Policy 4, regulations on the revocation of press agency operating licenses. The objective of the policy is to ensure the quality of press activities, through the management agency having tools to handle cases of press agencies that do not meet the operating conditions and have misconduct; preventing the possibility of the press falling into a state of "privatization".

Policy 5, adding conditions for granting press cards to improve the quality of journalists with the goal of promoting a transparent, professional, humane press environment and enhancing the reputation of the press industry.

Policy 6, perfecting regulations for the import of printed newspapers. The policy aims to enhance the capacity to assess imported content and control information for newspaper import establishments; creating a transparent environment for the newspaper import market.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Press Law is built on the viewpoint that the press is an important means of information, propaganda tool, ideological weapon of our Party and State, and a forum for the people.

The press must be under the comprehensive and direct leadership of the Party, the management of the State, and operate within the legal framework. Therefore, the amendment and supplementation of policies must aim to ensure the leadership of the Party and the management of the State over the press; to maximize the positive aspects, to overcome the shortcomings and defects in press activities; to develop the press in parallel with good press management.

At the same time, ensure citizens' rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press; the enforcement mechanism ensures that no one is allowed to abuse the rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press to infringe upon the interests of the State and the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals.

Ensuring the feasibility of regulations, creating conditions for the press to develop in accordance with development trends in the context of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution and political , economic and social conditions in Vietnam; Promoting administrative procedure reform, strengthening decentralization and delegation of power in press management.

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