How New Voices are Taking Root in Việt Nam’s News Desert

By the measure of whether local journalism exists, all of Việt Nam is now one vast news desert.

To understand this phenomenon, allow me a brief detour to the West. English has the term “news desert”—a phrase native speakers sometimes confuse with an after-dinner “dessert.” But spelling aside, you don’t have to work in journalism to understand its meaning. 

The term was developed by the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina. The concept describes a community with little or no access to the essential, reliable information needed to participate in important local decisions. 

This void usually results from the disappearance of local news outlets. According to UNC’s latest figures, released in 2026, half of the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. have only one newspaper, usually a weekly. About 200 counties have no newspaper at all, and that number is growing. [1] 

In fact, local newspapers in the U.S. are vanishing at a heartbreaking rate of two each week. [2] Over the past two decades, 3,400 newspapers have closed, representing roughly 40% of the total. [3] Driven out of business by shifting reading habits, shrinking public media budgets, and the failure of digital outlets to find a sustainable financial model, these closures have left well over 70 million people living in news deserts.

We can imagine what that life looks like. Entertainment and sensationalism are everywhere, but political developments, new policies, and public safety information receive only cursory coverage. 

No one investigates corruption, holds public agencies accountable, or brings attention to the injustices endured by vulnerable groups. UNC research has found that people in news deserts tend to know less about their communities and are therefore less likely to vote. [4]

I explain this phenomenon because what is happening in the U.S. is not solely an American story. Vietnamese people cannot participate in meaningful elections, but they certainly do not need to imagine what a news desert is. 

You might assume that Sài Gòn, at least, must be different. I believed that too until this summer, when it changed. The last reputable newspapers were wiped out, ending the history of a vibrant press that once moved in step with a rapidly changing city. [5] Instead of Người Lao Động or Pháp Luật Thành Phố, all that remains is a Sài Gòn Giải Phóng that repeats the government’s words verbatim or a Tuổi Trẻ that dares not speak until the police issue an official statement.

In Hồ Chí Minh City, as in many other places following the “rearrangement of the country” in July 2025, many people are not even sure which ward they live in. [6] A year of upheaval caused by the authorities has also been a year in which the press was strangled. Three years ago, after writing “Soon, Every Newspaper Will Become Nhân Dân (the official newspaper and central press organ of the Communist Party),” I was so disillusioned that I no longer wanted to talk about journalism. [7] 

I wish my prediction had been wrong.

Today, the number of journalists no longer matters if all  they do is compete to make propaganda more appealing. Social media cannot fill every information gap, commercial sites focus only on profitable subjects, and people do not trust VTV (Việt Nam’s national television)—they simply have no alternative. Yet, even as the press collapsed as an institution, I watched journalism sprout anew as a practice.

Citizens are filling the gaps left by reporters, especially during crises. During the historic floods at the end of 2025, while state media blindly followed official instructions to report on “flooding in Đắk Lắk,” residents reminded one another that Phú Yên was where relief was actually needed. [8] 

In June 2026, when the government forced more than 70,000 households along the Red River dikes to make way for a scenic boulevard, residents formed a Facebook group to keep one another updated. [9] That same month, when 1,400 households and five Catholic churches were ordered to relocate within 38 days for an airport, the Bắc Ninh Diocese’s media page stepped in to broadcast residents’ discontent to the public. [10]

If these are new shoots in a news desert, Threads users have shown how fast they can grow. The summer of 2026 was defined by injustice for Việt Nam’s 18-year-olds. They repeatedly questioned the state media’s total absence when they spoke out about exam-score fraud in Tuyên Quang, environmental destruction at Hải Vân Pass, and immunity for an official who fatally struck someone with a car in Hà Nội.

Despite adults dismissing them as gullible and the very real risk of state censorship and police punishment, they helped one another investigate issues and analyze data. They encouraged each other to “keep the chain going” to prevent these cases from fading into obscurity. [11] In doing so, they forced the state to respond, prompted international media coverage, and exposed the falsehoods of a press that calls itself “revolutionary.”

Efforts like these shook me awake. With news deserts spreading worldwide—whether for economic reasons in the U.S. or political ones in Việt Nam—we must reconsider the role of the press as an institution. 

People shared news within their communities long before journalism became a codified profession. Because these practices are bound to a community’s survival, the closure of news organizations represents only a change in the canopy.

People will continue to do what they must. The roots will continue to live and spread. Instead of mourning the great trees that have died, we would do better to nurture the shoots and roots in the soil beneath our feet—or within ourselves.

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Hiền Minh wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on September 2, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine translated it into English.