“CLIMATE CHANGE COVERAGE BY THE VIETNAMESE MEDIA”
Executive Summary
Prof. Pham Huy Dung, PhD
The Institute of Health, Environment and Development
Hanoi, Vietnam
in association with the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists
and Internews’ Earth Journalism Network
December 1, 2007

Summary of Results

This study is being carried out by a research team of the Institute of Health, Environment and Development in Hanoi, Vietnam in collaboration with the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists (VFEJ) and Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN), and funded by the British Embassy to examine coverage of Vietnam mass media on climate change.

After combing through the output of 5 of Vietnam’s representative newspapers published in September and October of 2007, the study found there were 24 print articles on climate change during the two-month period, which means on average each newspaper produces 2-3 articles per month on the subject.

The content of Voice of Vietnam’s daily radio broadcast on “Resources and Environment” was also studied. An examination of 26 of the programs revealed that there were a total of 79 different reports on environment, of which 3 directly related to climate change. A study of Hanoi TV’s weekly “Urban Issues” program over an 8-week period revealed that there were 11 reports on the environment included in the program, but at most one¹ of them focused directly on climate change.

A more qualitative assessment of the content concludes the following:

• These Vietnamese mass media organizations report on climate change as a very broad problem, on national and global scales, without linking it to any local situations or issues;
• Most print articles on climate change are reports on conferences and on what leaders, authorities say and do about climate change. The articles are sometimes very long but the focus seems distant to ordinary people, especially farmers (at least 70% of Vietnamese people are farmers);
• The stories generally react to news events and comments by leading officials, particularly at UN and other international conferences; there is virtually no enterprise reporting on the topic;
• The stories do not generally report on any debates, differing viewpoints, or alternative perspectives regarding climate change as would stories on other types of environmental problems; and
• As revealed during a recent journalism training workshop on climate change, it is difficult for journalists to make climate change topics engaging to local people who tend to focus on daily life and practical issues of food, finance, education, safety, health, etc.

Background

With its long coastline and a great deal of productive low-lying coastal land, Vietnam is predicted to be one of the countries most greatly affected by climate change, according to a World Bank study.² Even just a one-meter increase in sea levels is expected to affect 10 percent of the population, particularly in the Mekong Delta area. How has this situation been reflected in Vietnam’s mass media?

In 2006, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network commissioned the Institute of Health, Environment and Development – a Hanoi-based research organization headed by Prof. Pham Huy Dung – to carry out a baseline assessment of environmental journalism in Vietnam. The goal of the study was to assess the extent to which the Vietnamese mass media reported on key environmental issues, to look at the strengths and weaknesses of such coverage and provide recommendations on how to improve such coverage. The study was designed to help inform a capacity-building project being carried out by Internews, a non-profit media development organization, and the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists (VFEJ). The entire project, including the report was funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

In addition to carrying out interviews with representatives of some mass media organizations, the researchers collected and analyzed samples of environment-related stories produced by 30 Vietnamese journalists, from 30 different media organizations around the country. These journalists, some of whom were selected to attend environmental journalism training courses carried out in 2007, claimed to have written a total of 197 articles on environment-related issues during September and October, 2006 (accounting for about 19% of their total news output during those two months). Of these, the researchers were able to collect 172 articles for study, the vast majority of them print and online articles.

A media content analysis of the 172 environmental journalism stories included a more specific look at the topics chosen. The results of the analysis showed the stories focused on the following environmental subjects:

The fact that there were apparently no stories at all on climate change, in a country expected to be greatly affected by global warming, was frankly shocking, and warranted further study. A further review of previous research in Vietnam suggests there has been little work to date on media coverage focusing on climate change and therefore an urgent need to look closely into what mass media has done and what should be improved regarding climate change.

As a result, Internews and the VFEJ again hired the Institute of Health, Environment and Development to carry out a new study in 2007, this one funded by the British Embassy in Hanoi, to look specifically at climate change coverage in the Vietnamese media. This study has attempted to look more systematically at Vietnam’s mass media output, and include sampling from broadcast outlets as well as print and online media. The study is actually still in progress, but the preliminary results are presented here.

Methodology

This is a cross-sectional study which includes three components: (1) Content analysis of 653 environmental print articles published by five selected print newspapers in Vietnam, 79 environmental reports broadcast by the Voice of Vietnam a radio network on its daily “Resources and Environment” program, and 11 stories aired by a television station, Hanoi TV on its weekly “Urban Issues” program, all during the months of September and October, 2007; (2) Policy analysis through interviews with officials in the ministries in charge and analyses of legal documents on environmental journalism; and (3) Institutional analysis through interviews with representatives of seven selected media organizations on their editorial policies on climate change, their awareness and interest in the topic, and through interviews with 30 journalists from 30 newspapers throughout the country about their newspapers’ policies, settings,  regarding environmental journalism, their experience, their focus in writing about the environment, and their opinions as well as their recommendations regarding environmental journalism focusing on climate change.  

The seven mass media organizations targeted for research were selected because they are prestigious with very large scopes of coverage, large audiences and good influence in terms of political implications and experience in environmental journalism. The selection is also based on geographical representation as well as accessibility to the audio-visual records. For print media, five newspapers were selected with the criteria that each of them is representative of different groups. They are Labor newspaper (Lao Dong), Youth newspaper (Tuoi Tre), People newspaper (Nhan Dan), New Hanoi newspaper (Hanoi moi), and Dong Nai newspaper from the South. Lao Dong is a national daily newspaper from the North, managed by the Vietnam General Laborers Union, and is among the newspapers with the highest circulation (up to 350,000 copies) in the country. It targets all laborers. Tuoi Tre is a national daily newspaper from the South, and is among the newspapers with the highest circulation in the country (up to 400,000 copies). It targets the younger generation, and is managed by Ho Chi Minh City's Ho Chi Minh Young Communists Union. Nhan Dan is the mouthpiece of Vietnam’s Communist Party (managed by the Politburo of the Vietnam Communist Party). Hanoi moi is a representative of local newspapers in the North and it is the mouthpiece of the capital city, run by the Hanoi Communist Committee. Dong Nai is a representative of local newspapers in the South, and is run by the Dong Nai Communist Committee. Hanoi Television is in the capital city and is managed by the Hanoi People’s Committee. The Voice of Vietnam (VOV) is the national radio network. For audio-visual data, the research team had to rely on the two stations to provide all available archived records of September and October 2007. The team requested copies of the VOV’s daily program on “Resources and the Environment”, but received only 26 of the 61 programs aired during the two-month period. The 26 programs contained 79 separate reports (or “segments”) which were analyzed for their climate change content. Similarly, the research team requested copies of TV’s weekly “Urban Issues” program, which often covers environmental issues. It received 8 of the 9 programs aired during September and October, 2007 and analyzed the 11 environmental reports contained therein. The research team found print data much easier to collect, examining all the environmental articles produced by the 5 newspapers studied.

Results
The study of environmental coverage in the Vietnamese mass media during September and October, 2007, indicate that although climate change is sometimes mentioned as a topic, it is rarely a focus of coverage. Only 3 VOV reports and 24 print articles reported directly on climate change³. All these reports were general and discussed the topic on a global scale. Seventeen of the 24 print pieces were about UN and APEC conferences’ deliberations on climate change. In other words, they were largely reactive news stories as opposed to enterprise pieces. Three stories were about climate change’s direct effects on very broad scales with only one from one radio story about such effects in Vietnam. Four stories included discussions about solutions to climate change. One radio segment was about the UN IPCC report on climate change. None of the stories discussed climate change profoundly and professionally, looked at vulnerability, or ways to prevent climate change or adapt to it in Vietnam. None of the reports related climate change to local issues, local situations and local responses.  

Almost all the newspapers covered climate change in an indirect way, but even here coverage was more limited than it could have been. There were many articles about natural disasters, mostly about floods, storms and spring waters.⁴ Climate change is thought to affect these events, but no journalists linked the the disasters with climate change. Most articles reflected how people coped with the disasters, but the solutions covered are temporary and come in the form of emergency response. Very few discussions were on sustainable solutions to floods, spring waters and storms. Articles' contents focused on three main aims: (1) most of them reported on how people handled the onset of the floods, and coped during and after the disasters, how they used resources, supported each other, survived through floods and floods' impacts, etc. (2) A smaller number of articles on flood topics described how much people had to suffer in floods and outcomes of floods; they reported on losses, damages, the cost of these disasters and problems caused by them; and (3) A certain number of articles were produced to inform people of incoming floods, warn people of danger, problems, risks, etc. Hanoi TV’s “Urban Issues” program did not have a broadcast on natural disasters during the two-month study period, although other news and scientific programs are likely to have covered such events.
Regarding the quality of articles on climate change, regardless whether they tackled the topic directly or indirectly, the standard was judged to be acceptable for the target audiences (mostly the general public) for 23 of the 24 print articles. Twenty-two of the 24 articles had clear sources of information, and were written in standard structures (21 of 24 print items). The indicators of quality that need improving include: explanations of scientific knowledge were limited (only 8 of 24 print articles on climate change satisfied this indicator); and few different viewpoints were reflected (only 11 of 24 print articles showed different stances/viewpoints for the topic). More than half of the print articles on climate change used from 60 to 90% of foreign terminology for climate change jargons (13/24). A bit fewer of them used Vietnamese terminology (11 of 24 print articles). For audio broadcasts, all three climate change were of good quality. However, one limitation is that none of them reflected different viewpoints.

Our in-depth interviews with representatives from environment and journalism management institutions, representatives of the target newspapers and 30 journalists showed a difference of opinion on journalism focusing on climate change. Most representative of management bodies do not see the need to set a focus on environmental journalism in Vietnam; whereas, most journalists favor this idea. Asked to suggest a focal issue, almost nobody directly mentioned climate change. Other topics are considered more appealing to the public than climate change.

Regarding broader environmental coverage, the investigation of the seven targeted mass media organizations revealed that only two of them – the radio broadcaster Voice of Vietnam and Hanoi TV -- have a regular program on the environment (and Hanoi TV’s program “Urban Issues” covers other topics, as well). None of the print media in the study assign a specific and regular column to the topic. The most frequent types of all the analyzed articles were feature pieces (52.22%) and news pieces (32.22%). On average, about 0.79% of the television’s weekly broadcast time is on “urban issues”, which includes environmental issues. About 1.72% of the VOV radio’s weekly broadcasts time is on “resources and environment”. And much of these programs focuses on issues beside the environment. Most of the environmental reports were scheduled at the end or near the end of the programs. 64.44% of the radio and television reports⁵ lasted 5 minutes and shorter. Only on the VOV radio is a segment spared for entertainment focusing on environmental knowledge quizzes.

Regarding environmental topics, the broadcasters focused the most on waste disposal, especially hospital waste disposal during the two-month period (5 of 11 television reports and 24 of 79 radio reports). The second most popular focal issue was water resources (2 of 11 television items and 15 of 79 radio items). For print newspapers, the number of daily articles on the environment ranged from 2.8% to 7.04%. Most of the newspapers printed environment stories on inside pages (77.48%). Others are either on the front page or led from the front page to the insides. Only a few of them are from half-page size to two-page size (18.22%). During September and October, 2007, the most frequent environmental sectors mentioned in the print newspapers were natural disasters (25.57%) and waste disposal (11.94%). 63.25% of the articles’ information was sourced from local people. These results can be explained by the facts that Vietnam suffered from a lot of floods following two disastrous typhoons during the two months and investigations into hospital wastes disposal made it a hot topic during this period. 

Concerning ways to improve environmental journalism, representatives of the seven selected media organizations expressed interest in training environmental journalists in a professional way. They suggested a collaboration among different organizations working on environmental protection and journalism to empower Vietnam environmental journalism. They urged the VFEJ to activate itself more to be a good resource and a true forum for journalists. Some of them agreed that there should be more training courses for journalists. Other said that organizations working in environmental journalism like VFEJ should be developed more and the society should know about them. Journalism should play a role in proposing better solutions to environmental problems. Journalists need more scientific studies on the impacts of climate change in the people’s daily lives and journalism skills so that they can connect climatic problems with daily lives and attract a larger audience. But they journalists do not see a need for environmental journalists who specialize in environmental journalism. From their responses, it is clear that journalists have difficulties in reflecting on environment and climate change. They do want to report on these issues but the public’s concerns are more immediate and practical.

Vietnam has a rational legal framework for environment protection and it has ratified a lot of international conventions and treaties regarding environment and climate change, especially Kyoto Protocol in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  In Directive number 35/2005/CT-TTg on 17 October 2005 about implementing this protocol, point two requires that “The Ministry of Culture and Information leads, collaborates with Ministry of Resources and Environment and mass media organizations to propagandize, enhance the awareness of different social classes about dangers caused by climate change, about responsibilities and benefits when they follow Kyoto Protocol and CDM⁶”. However, there are no directions and guidelines for implementing this requirement. Also, most target newspapers investigated in this study do not have written policies and guidelines on environmental journalism. Most of the available guidelines (not policies) are in oral form, seem general in nature, and treat environmental articles in the same way as other kinds of articles.

Conclusion

During the target months, there were only a few stories directly addressing climate change issues in the Vietnamese media and none of them discussed the topic on local levels. Most of the articles tackled climate change indirectly and journalists do not link these related topics to climate change. The quality of these articles matches basic journalism standards but is still low in reporting on scientific knowledge and showing different viewpoints objectively. Recommendations of different interviewees centered around developing organizations to support journalists in covering the environment, training journalists, developing the VFEJ, integrating journalists in a network of cooperation to protect the environment and the need of a focus for environmental journalism.

From the results of this study and discussions about those results, we would like to propose some points regarding capacity building, and further research on journalism and climate change. Considering that climate change has become the hot topic of the time, the absence of guiding documents from authorities of journalism and the neglects of the public on one hand and the difficulties of journalists on this topic, we suggest that there should be short-terms and long-term projects to empower journalism on climate change.

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