Xtra, Xtra, Read All About It!

I love journalists. Really. I'm happy to claim Journalism as one of my majors, though I'm not sure if that'll be the career path I'll take.

Journalists follow us everywhere in Viet Nam. In Ho Chi Minh City, we walked into a random restaurant called Nha Nem to find a television crew setting up the camera angle for our table-to-be. On the last day Matt and I taught, we were accompanied by a sweet-faced journalist who filmed us doing activities with the kids.

Now, here in the middle-of-the-jungle Ben Tre, they're coming out of the woodwork.

On the first day, Kelsey and I stuffed bags full of gravel on a riverboat (now we can say "back in our days on a riverboat in 'Nam"), we jokingly sang songs to pass the time. We looked up to find two journalists scribbling eagerly and snapping photos.

"Please, would you tell me the names of the American folk songs you sang?" the male journalist asked me later.

I didn't even know I knew folk songs. But I guess "I've Been Working on the Railroad," "Ol' Man River" and "Dinah Won't You Blow Your Horn" count. Maybe not "I'm a Survivor" or "It's a Hard Knock Life", Jay-Z version.

These journalists were very curious. And, like good journalists, they asked the tough questions.

"Do American girls have sex all the time?" WHAT!!!!!

Rather shocking, mortifying, humiliating, horrifying. I told them a definite NO, not all American girls do. Clearly Hollywood speaks louder than Focus on the Family does. Thankfully my friends chimed in to help explain.

Anyhow, it was an interesting conversation. Especially when I had questions for them.

"How do you feel about the Vietnamese government's control over the media?"

"Oh, it's not control...it's regulation. Without regulation, there would be political trouble. People would disagree with the government and make trouble. There is more peace with a government-regulated media. But sometimes the government will print new laws in the newspapers, and we leave space for local people to editorialize."

"Are the editorials anonymous?"

"Anonymous? Um, no. We know who they are."

Things of that nature. My Vietnamese friends told me I should not ask such difficult questions.

I've my doubts about the credibility of these particular journalists, writing for the national Labor newspaper and Tuoi Tre, the youth newspaper which everyone reads. The article on us began this way:

"A cute girl Susie, with blue eyes and a small body, wearing rolled up pants and singing American folk songs, merrily carried bags of sand across a river."

Yeah. The Vietnamese journalists have won my heart with the "small body" comment, but the rest...honestly. My eyes are unmistakably brown. Clearly here reality is in the eye of the beholder. They also quoted a few of us as saying rather pro-Communist comments we don't recall...odd.

They've all given us their phone numbers and home addresses, asking that we contact them when we return to the States. Could be interesting.

Is it possible for journalism to be as accurate as possible if there are vested interests, especially commercial or national ones? Maybe the purpose of journalism in Viet Nam, which is explicitly to provide a channel of communication between the government and the people, is different than that of American journalism (print the truth because it's there, relevant and helps folks make decisions). Both are forms of journalism, but personally I see a vast difference. Let me know what you think, and I can write more on this later.