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National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong attaches the Ho Chi Minh Order to the Vietnam News Agency's flag yesterday in Ha Noi —VNA/VNs Photo Tri Dung |
National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong attaches the Ho Chi Minh Order to the Vietnam News Agency's flag yesterday in Ha Noi —VNA/VNs Photo Tri Dung
HA NOI — The Vietnam News Agency was bestowed with its second Ho Chi Minh Order at a ceremony to honour its founding 65 years ago at the Ha Noi Opera House yesterday.
VNA General Director Tran Mai Huong, his deputies and predecessors were on stage to receive Viet Nam's second highest order on behalf of the agency from National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong.
They stood among an abundance of flowers, including those from Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh and President Nguyen Minh Triet, while an audience of VNA veterans warmly applauded.
Pictures taken by numerous VNA photographers in war and peace were on display in the galleries at the entrance to the auditorium.
VNA would have to lift its standards even higher in the age of globalisation with continuing development of information technology, Trong told the gathering.
The various types of modern information services with their increasing transmission speeds posed both opportunities and challenges, he said.
The negatives were mixed with the positives: A great variety of information; good and bad news; truth and falsehoods.
VNA, more than any other, was best placed to encourage and praise the right and the good while criticising, preventing and forcing into retreat the bad and the negative, he said.
It also had to efficiently perform its functions and duties, especially the orientation of information and maintaining its position as a major news provider.
Specifically, it must pioneer the dissemination of information about the Party and Government's policies and laws; reflect in a timely manner the people's aspirations and pressing issues that arise from reality.
It must also promote the country's image, culture and people to international friends, and become a bridge between its domestic readers and the world.
The chairman reminded the agency that it must unceasingly strive to improve its method of disseminating information in a lively, attractive and increasingly pervasive manner.
This would enable it to communicate with people of different walks of life, both of in and beyond country in the fastest possible way, he said.
The chairman emphasised that VNA must have a network of professional journalists with firm political views and a high sense of responsibility and morality.
Historic
VNA General Director Huong said the agency had broadcast Viet Nam's Declaration of Independence together with the names of the provisional government to the world on September 15, 1945.
"That historical moment became the agency's traditional day," he explained.
VNA officials and journalists were in all the strategic areas and at all the major operations and events during the wars of resistance against the French colonialists and the US invaders, he said.
Not only did they record and report these historical moments; they took part in the making of these great events.
The general director said VNA had become a pioneering media group that helped bring the Party's directives and policies to life.
It had identified exemplary people and promoted new thinking and methods.
The agency had also helped pioneer the fight against negatives, continued to extend its coverage of domestic news, and opened new channels of information to serve both external affairs and renewal.
The agency had worked to improve information quality; diversify its information services and its operating methods in an attempt to diversify and quickly deliver accurate news to win reader confidence.
VNA reflected political, economic, cultural and social events in a timely and appropriate manner and played an important role in foiling the plots and attempted sabotage of hostile forces.
The agency produced more than 40 publications and its services included newspapers, radio, television, on-line newspapers.
It was also studying to produce useful multimedia products.
The agency has 63 bureaux throughout Viet Nam and another 27 throughout the world. It has relations with more than 40 foreign news agencies and media organisations.— VNS
