VietNamNet

VietNamNet is one of Vietnam’s major online news publishers and, since June 2025, a public service unit and designated mouthpiece of the Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs. It changed supervising ministry twice in four months during the 2025 government restructuring, and was then merged with the ethnic affairs newspaper Dân tộc và Phát triển, acquiring print editions in the process. Its governance moved from the ministry responsible for media policy to one responsible for ethnic and religious affairs, an unusual relocation for a general news outlet.

Media assets

Digital: Báo điện tử VietNamNet, the flagship news portal at vietnamnet.vn; the Dân tộc và Phát triển section within it; and the English-language VietNamNet Global at vietnamnet.vn/en/

Print: Báo in Dân tộc và Phát triển, and the monthly Ấn phẩm Dân tộc và Phát triển cuối tháng

Structure: 16 subordinate units following the merger, comprising four functional departments, ten professional departments and two representative offices, a reduction of nine from the two organisations’ combined structures. The June 2025 merger plan provided for 246 staff

The four licensed press products reflect the June 2025 merger. Earlier VietNamNet-linked portals are not part of that product list: 2Sao and Tintuconline remain active as general-information portals operated by VietNamNet Communications JSC rather than by the merged public service newspaper. The merger nevertheless expanded VietNamNet into print through the two Dân tộc và Phát triển products, amid the wider consolidation of Vietnam’s press system.

Ownership and governance

VietNamNet’s institutional history is one of repeated reassignment. The vnn.vn portal launched on 19 December 1997. On 17 June 2008 the Prime Minister transferred the electronic newspaper to the Ministry of Information and Communications, and on 30 May 2018 the minister merged it with Báo Bưu điện Việt Nam to form Báo VietNamNet in its modern form.

The 2025 restructuring moved it twice. Implementing Resolution 18-NQ/TW, the National Assembly approved a new government structure on 18 February 2025 under which the Ministry of Information and Communications was merged into the Ministry of Science and Technology, which operated under its new framework from 1 March. Decree 55/2025/NĐ-CP of 2 March 2025 provided that VietNamNet would continue operating until the competent authority approved its transfer to the Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs, a body itself created in February 2025 from the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs together with religious affairs functions taken from the Ministry of Home Affairs. Decree 114/2025/NĐ-CP of 3 June 2025, amending Decree 41/2025/NĐ-CP, completed that transfer. Both were subsequently superseded by Decree 297/2026/NĐ-CP, effective 24 July 2026, which retains Báo VietNamNet as one of four public service units serving the ministry’s state management functions.

The move was accompanied by a merger. VietNamNet was consolidated with Báo Dân tộc và Phát triển, the ministry’s existing ethnic affairs newspaper. At a ceremony on 20 June 2025 the Minister for Ethnic and Religious Affairs, Đào Ngọc Dung, signed six personnel decisions. Nguyễn Văn Bá was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the merged organisation, with Hoàng Thị Bảo Hương, Lê Thế Vinh, Bùi Thị Hạ and Nguyễn Văn Phong as deputies; Bùi Thị Hạ had been a deputy editor of Dân tộc và Phát triển. The ministry described the objective in terms of a single newspaper with one vision and one streamlined structure, warning against divisions between the merged staffs.

VietNamNet is designated a public service unit and the mouthpiece of its supervising ministry. Its functions, tasks, powers and structure are set by Decision 456/QĐ-BDTTG of 31 July 2025. State Media Monitor identified no independent governing board or external editorial oversight mechanism, and senior editorial appointments are made by ministerial decision.

The relocation is analytically notable. VietNamNet is a general news publisher with one of the largest audiences in Vietnam, and it now sits under a ministry whose remit is ethnic minority and religious affairs rather than information policy. Press licensing and content regulation, meanwhile, passed to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in the same restructuring. The outlet’s supervising ministry, its regulator and its subject matter are therefore three separate things.

Source of funding and budget

State Media Monitor identified no current post-merger consolidated financial statements or revenue breakdown establishing the balance between public support and commercial income. Ministry transparency records show that VietNamNet has previously disclosed state budget accounts, including its 2022 final accounts, but these do not establish the current proportion of its total resources derived from public funding.

VietNamNet is a public service unit of the Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs and also has substantial commercial activity. VietNamNet Communications JSC is its exclusive partner for exploiting advertising, communications, event and copyright services across the newspaper’s print, electronic and social media products through the end of 2027. The published record does not establish what proportion of the newspaper’s overall resources derives respectively from public and commercial sources.

Editorial independence

State Media Monitor identified no statutory guarantee of editorial independence for VietNamNet. It is formally the mouthpiece of its supervising ministry, its editorial leadership is appointed by ministerial decision, and State Media Monitor identified no independent board or external oversight mechanism standing between the newsroom and that ministry.

The relocation to the Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs did not loosen that relationship, and the merger extended the outlet’s remit into the ministry’s policy area. Ministers framed the combination as an opportunity to communicate ethnic and religious policy through VietNamNet’s larger platform, which describes the alignment plainly enough.

The national legal framework was rewritten during the review period. On 10 December 2025 the National Assembly passed a new Press Law, number 126/2025/QH15, and a new Cybersecurity Law, number 116/2025/QH15, both in force from 1 July 2026. The Press Law expressly regulates press activity and content channels in cyberspace, adds permitted revenue sources for press organisations, and broadens compulsory state access to journalistic sources, expanding the authorities entitled to demand disclosure and removing the previous restriction limiting such demands to very serious and especially serious crimes. These provisions bear directly on a publisher whose output is almost entirely online.

AI and digital policy

Vietnam became the first Southeast Asian country to bring a standalone artificial intelligence law into force. The National Assembly passed Law 134/2025/QH15 on 10 December 2025 and it took effect on 1 March 2026. Article 11 requires providers to mark AI-generated audio, images and video in machine-readable form, requires deployers to notify the public where AI-generated or AI-edited material could cause confusion about the authenticity of events or persons, and requires visible labels on content simulating a real person’s appearance or voice. Decree 142/2026/NĐ-CP, issued on 30 April 2026 and effective from 1 May, provides the implementing detail.

A separate Press Law implementing measure, Decree 237/2026/NĐ-CP, effective 1 July 2026, imposes media-specific duties. Press organisations must verify and review AI-generated or AI-assisted content, assume responsibility for its authenticity and legality, clearly label generated or edited material where it could cause confusion about authenticity, maintain internal review and risk control procedures, and retain relevant activity logs and technical records.

These obligations fall with particular weight on a digital-first publisher operating at volume. State Media Monitor identified no publicly available VietNamNet editorial policy on generative AI, synthetic media, human verification or disclosure of AI-assisted material beyond what the statutes require.

Classification rationale

VietNamNet is classified Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu), revised from State-Controlled.

It is state-owned and state-governed. VietNamNet is a public service unit of a government ministry, formally designated as that ministry’s mouthpiece. It has no shareholders and no independent appointing body, and State Media Monitor identified no independent governing board or external editorial oversight mechanism. Its Editor-in-Chief and all four deputies were appointed by ministerial decision in June 2025, and the organisation’s structure was set by the same process that merged it with the ministry’s existing newspaper.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state influence. The mouthpiece designation is explicit, the supervising ministry appoints the leadership, and the merger extended the outlet’s editorial remit into that ministry’s policy field. No statute or oversight body offers a counterweight.

Predominant state funding is not demonstrated, and this is the condition that places VietNamNet in CaPu rather than State-Controlled. Although VietNamNet is a ministerial public service unit and has historically disclosed state budget accounts, State Media Monitor identified no current consolidated accounts or post-merger revenue breakdown establishing that public financing constitutes the predominant share of its resources. The outlet also operates substantial commercial activities through advertising and related services, exploited exclusively by VietNamNet Communications JSC through the end of 2027. The assertion in earlier assessments that commercial revenue accounted for less than half of its finances cannot be verified from published figures.

August 2026