By Vu Ngan Binh | Tue., September 6, 5:08 PM
By Vu Ngan Binh, Vietnam News Agency Bureau in London
I was so excited when I received an offer to attend the training course for Thomson Reuters Foundation’s ‘Writing Financial and Business News’ that I contacted friends all over the world to tell them. One friend’s daughter, who is studying mathematics and finance at City University, London, was very enthused and has instructed me to report back what I learnt from the course to her.
However, for me attendance on the course is not only an opportunity to learn skills and valuable knowledge from the prestigious Thomson Reuters Foundation, but it is also a chance for me to realise a personal dream.
I became a journalist by chance. I had been working for the Ministry of Agriculture’s Maize Research Institute when I joined Vietnam’s first English language daily newspaper, Vietnam News, just months after it was launched in 1991. The newspaper was born just a couple of years after the country launched its renewal drive which introduced market reforms and allowed for substantial progress in reducing poverty.
Twenty years since its first publication as a four-page newspaper, Vietnam News is now a 32-page daily, the largest English language daily newspaper in Vietnam and is considered a first-hand source of domestic and international news for foreigners living in the country. Its publisher, Vietnam News Agency has a network of 63 local bureaux throughout the country and 27 overseas offices in Asia, Europe, Africa, America and Oceania. Finance and business news has also grown from an average of two pages per day to eight. The journalists at the newspaper have had general journalism training either abroad or on-the-job but opportunities such as the one provided by Thomson Reuters Foundation this week in London are rare. That said, last year one young female journalist from the newspaper, Tran Quynh Hoa, won a scholarship for a Thomson Reuters Foundation Writing Business News course and she spoke highly of her enriching experience which helped her progress from a domestic to foreign correspondent.
I have no doubts that the course will advance my career, but on a personal level, I can fulfil my dream of visiting Reuters, London. Thirty years ago, when I was a student of English at a foreign language college, I dreamed of visiting London; Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey and Hyde Park. When I started working at the Vietnam News Newspaper, I added the Reuters newsroom to my list of places to visit.
I still can’t believe that my dream has finally come true now. I have been working as a Vietnam News Agency correspondent in the UK since 2010, and this week I ticked off the Reuters newsroom from my list of must visit places in London.
There is no doubt that I, together with other participants on the programme, will benefit greatly from this five day training course. I look forward to sharing the knowledge and skills I have learnt on the course with my other colleagues back in Vietnam and of course with my friend’s daughter studying at City.
I would like to express my thanks for this wonderful chance provided by Thomson Reuters Foundation and I hope that in future more young journalists from Vietnam News Agency and beyond can benefit from this experience too.
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