Tuoi Tre
Tuoi Tre, meaning “Youth” in Vietnamese, is one of Vietnam’s most widely circulated newspapers and a dominant force in the Ho Chi Minh City media landscape. The publisher oversees the flagship Tuoi Tre daily, the weekly Tuoi Tre Cuoi Tuan, and the semi-monthly satirical publication Tuoi Tre Cuoi. Over the past two decades, Tuoi Tre has cemented its place as a key player in Vietnam’s print and digital news ecosystem, maintaining a robust readership both on paper and online.
Media assets
Publishing: Tuoi Tre
State Media Matrix Typology
Ownership and governance
Tuoi Tre operates under the auspices of the Ho Chi Minh City chapter of the Communist Youth Union (Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union), which retains full control over the newspaper’s governance. According to local media experts and journalists interviewed for this report in June 2024 and reaffirmed in 2025, the Union exercises decisive influence over senior editorial appointments and strategic direction, effectively tying the publication’s operational autonomy to the Communist Party’s youth wing.
Source of funding and budget
The paper generates substantial revenue through advertising, buoyed by its large audience across multiple platforms. However, a considerable proportion of this income is drawn from state-owned enterprises, blurring the line between commercial viability and political patronage. Interviews with Vietnamese media insiders conducted in June 2024 and updated in mid-2025 confirm that the financial lifeline of Tuoi Tre is ultimately tethered to party structures.
Editorial independence
Once lauded for its relatively bold editorial tone, Tuoi Tre has experienced a marked regression in its journalistic independence. The paper was known in the 1990s and 2000s for occasionally pushing the boundaries of acceptable discourse, publishing investigations and op-eds that drew the ire of state authorities. One of the most significant crackdowns occurred in 2018, when Tuoi Tre was fined and suspended for several months after publishing articles deemed politically sensitive.
However, recent developments point to a sustained erosion of editorial autonomy. According to Vietnamese media analysts interviewed in 2024 and corroborated by a content analysis conducted in April 2024, the publication’s political coverage overwhelmingly echoes the official government line, with virtually no content critical of state institutions or senior leadership. Stories are dominated by coverage of government policies, Communist Party meetings, and official visits—signaling a strategic shift towards conformity.
In light of these developments, Tuoi Tre was reclassified in 2024 from the Independent State-Funded and State-Managed/Owned Media (ISFM) category to the State-Controlled (SC) classification within the State Media Monitor typology.
As of June 2025, no domestic statute or publicly available regulatory framework guarantees Tuoi Tre’s editorial independence. Nor does any external oversight mechanism exist that would safeguard its journalistic integrity from political interference.
In the first half of 2025, Tuoi Tre has intensified coverage of national development programs and Party-led anti-corruption campaigns, aligning closely with the central government’s propaganda agenda ahead of the upcoming 14th National Party Congress. Several prominent editorial staff have been reshuffled since early 2025, reportedly under pressure to align the newsroom more closely with the Party’s ideological messaging, although no public announcements have detailed the rationale behind these changes.
July 2025