Building identity, asserting character.

Attending the commemoration ceremony were comrades: Truong Thi Mai, Member of the Political Bureau, Standing Member of the Central Secretariat of the Party, Head of the Central Organization Department; and Nguyen Trong Nghia, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, Head of the Central Propaganda Department.

Commemorating 35 years since the People's Weekend Newspaper published its first issue, establishing its identity and affirming its character (Figure 1). — On behalf of the Party and State leaders, Comrade Truong Thi Mai, Member of the Political Bureau , Standing Member of the Central Secretariat of the Party, and Head of the Central Organization Department, presented the Third-Class Labor Order to the People's Weekend Department (Nhan Dan Newspaper).

Representing Nhan Dan Newspaper were Comrade Le Quoc Minh, Member of the Central Committee of the Party, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, and President of the Vietnam Journalists Association ; veteran journalists and former Editors-in-Chief of Nhan Dan Newspaper: Ha Dang, Hong Vinh, and Thuan Huu; former Deputy Editors-in-Chief; members of the Editorial Board; representatives of the leadership of specialized departments; and a large number of staff and reporters from Nhan Dan Newspaper.

Speaking at the ceremony, Comrade Vu Mai Hoang, Head of the People's Weekend section, stated that the People's Weekend newspaper was the first weekend publication of the Vietnamese revolutionary press. 35 years ago, on February 12, 1989, the People's Sunday newspaper, now the People's Weekend, was officially launched according to Decision No. 80 dated December 24, 1988, of the Central Party Secretariat, signed by Comrade Nguyen Thanh Binh.

With the mission of being the first socio-political weekly newspaper of Vietnam's revolutionary press, Nhan Dan Weekend, for the past 35 years, has consistently adhered to the principles and criteria of a Party newspaper publication, while flexibly adjusting and improving its communication methods to continuously refine its development direction, build its identity, affirm its character, and follow the right and effective path.

With a streamlined organizational structure, the staff of Nhan Dan Weekend newspaper always upholds a spirit of proactive creativity in their professional work, focusing on organizing a wide network of collaborators with in-depth expertise in each field of information. This is the basic foundation for building, maintaining, and developing the strengths and distinctiveness of Nhan Dan Weekend: a system of special features/series of articles that offer in-depth insights into issues of social concern, questions that need answering, with opinions and comments from experts, high-quality articles, and sharp critiques in a humane and constructive spirit.

Not only is it adept at creating its own unique mark with in-depth journalism and solution-oriented journalism—in other words, the "slow journalism" trend—the Weekend edition of Nhan Dan newspaper always focuses on applying scientific and technological advancements and improving journalistic processes to avoid falling behind in the global information and digital age.

The digital transformation process has been strongly promoted by Nhan Dan Weekend over the past two years, starting with changing the mindset of the entire system through training, retraining, and improving modern journalistic skills, and building multimedia journalistic works. The content of the print newspaper's special features is edited, increasing the informational content, and transforming it into in-depth online data in the form of e-magazines, megastories, longforms, infographics, etc. This is a way to attract readers to stay on the online newspaper longer, while also inspiring them to read the print version with completely different experiences and informational insights.

The Nhan Dan Weekend issue has also undergone a groundbreaking change in its promotional strategy. In June 2021, PDF versions of the Nhan Dan Weekend issues were launched at docbao.nhandan.vn, allowing readers to directly access each page. From May 15, 2022, the PDF version of Nhan Dan Weekend officially appeared on the online news platform PressReader.

In addition, in 2021, 2022, and 2023, the Weekend People's Newspaper collaborated with the Information Center to organize and produce 20 issues of the Ethnic-Religious supplement (later renamed Vietnamese Soul), and also participated in producing the Ethnic-Religious radio program on online platforms.

Currently, the weekend edition of Nhan Dan Newspaper consists of 16 pages, A3 size, with 6 color pages, distributed nationwide every Friday, with an average print run of over 40,000 copies per issue.

Besides investing in improving the quality of its publications, Nhan Dan Weekend also increases its presence and coverage by diversifying its activities beyond the newspaper itself, such as organizing seminars, forums, and events; strengthening coordination with departments, publications, and units under Nhan Dan Newspaper in implementing communication projects; and developing in-depth journalistic products.

Speaking at the ceremony, on behalf of the Party and State leaders, Comrade Truong Thi Mai, Member of the Political Bureau, Standing Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, and Head of the Central Organization Department, extended her best wishes to the leaders, former leaders, and all staff and reporters of the Nhan Dan Weekend Newspaper.

The comrade affirmed that, for the past 73 years since its inception, the history of Nhan Dan Newspaper has always been closely linked to the revolutionary cause of the Party, constantly building and promoting fine traditions, and always reflecting promptly and truthfully issues related to the Party's guidelines and policies in all aspects of people's lives. Regardless of the circumstances, Nhan Dan Newspaper has always excellently fulfilled its assigned tasks; affirming its special and important role and position as the Party's official information channel, a core force in propaganda work, and worthy of being the Party's leading political and ideological banner.

The Sunday edition of Nhan Dan Newspaper, now the Weekend edition, has since then affirmed its position and distinctiveness while remaining integrated and interacting with the mainstream of Nhan Dan Newspaper and revolutionary journalism. It has established itself as a political-social weekly, attracting the participation of leading experts, reporters, and intellectuals with vision and prestige. It has upheld the principles of revolutionary journalism while opening new avenues, expanding its scope of dissemination, and demonstrating flexibility, sensitivity, and effectiveness. Through this, many insightful and practical articles have proposed and recommended numerous solutions for national development, Party building, and the political system, earning high praise from Party members, readers, and professionals.

He expressed his confidence that the staff of Nhan Dan Newspaper will grow stronger, upholding political qualities, professional competence, and professional ethics... to successfully fulfill its mission as a vanguard force on the ideological and cultural front of the Party, worthy of the contributions of previous generations...

Speaking at the ceremony, Comrade Le Quoc Minh, Editor-in-Chief of Nhan Dan newspaper, affirmed that in its 35-year journey of building and development, Nhan Dan Weekend has created its own unique mark by focusing on maintaining the orientation of a Party newspaper, while investing in in-depth in pressing issues of life, offering multi-faceted perspectives, proposing solutions to each issue in line with the trend of slow-paced journalism, solution-oriented journalism, and applying modern journalistic practices.

Thanks to its ability to capture the pulse of life, the weekend edition of Nhan Dan newspaper has reached a wide range of readers and attracted an increasing number of writers to contribute to the Party newspaper. This partly explains why Nhan Dan weekend has maintained its current circulation, especially in the context of difficulties faced by print newspapers globally and in Vietnam.

The comrade remarked: The challenges facing print media are growing, but this does not discourage those working for the Party's press. According to him, in the current context, the daily Nhan Dan newspaper still plays an important role because it is not only a publication that brings current news to everyone, but also serves as a guide and document on major policies of the Party and State, disseminating information to Party branches and individual Party members.

Alongside the daily newspaper are the weekend editions of Nhan Dan, the monthly editions of Nhan Dan, and Thoi Nay, all with stable circulation figures. These publications work seamlessly with Nhan Dan Television and Nhan Dan Online, ensuring that reader access is no longer limited by space or time.

"The People's Ecosystem is very diverse in types, but it is precisely the combination and optimization of platforms that has helped create a unified, mutually supportive 'One People' to achieve greater effectiveness in meeting the requirements of modern journalism as well as the demands of modern readers and users," the comrade emphasized.

Especially in an era where an ordinary person, possessing modern devices and technology, can create engaging content, journalism must be even more professional and high-quality in order to maintain its distinctiveness.

With increasingly sophisticated and demanding consumers who have more choices of information sources, the press cannot afford to be complacent and should not compete with social media. Instead, it needs to remain steadfast in its core mission as a revolutionary press and on its professional path. That is, in addition to providing truthful information on all aspects of life and playing a role in social oversight and criticism, the press must also effectively disseminate the Party and State's guidelines and policies, and act as a bridge between the Party, the State, and the people.

This mission never changes, and in fact, the Party newspaper is increasingly asserting its position in contributing to the struggle to protect and build the country, safeguarding the Party's ideological foundation, and guiding information for the people, always being recognized by the Party, the Government, and the people.

Also at this momentous event, on behalf of the Party and State leaders, Comrade Truong Thi Mai, Member of the Political Bureau, Standing Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, and Head of the Central Organization Department, presented the Third-Class Labor Medal to the People's Weekend Committee.

During the Q&A session, delegates heard heartfelt opinions from veteran journalists Ha Dang, Hong Vinh, Thuan Huu, Hai Duong, media expert Le Quoc Vinh, and shared expectations from contributors and readers regarding the Nhan Dan Weekend Newspaper...

Ha Van - Son Hai

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