Duong Xuan Nam typifies the spirit of journalism thriving among the upper echelons of Vietnam's media world. He considers his membership in the country's Communist Party as a badge of pride, for instance.

Like the editors-in-chief of this country's other newspapers, almost all of whom are members of the ruling Communist Party, Nam believes that his role as a journalist includes marching to the government's tune of what can and cannot be published in the local press.

This also means attending meetings held every Tuesday at the ministry of information, where the previous week's coverage is reviewed and the news agenda for the week ahead set.

''Almost all chief editors of the major newspaper have to be present,'' Nam, the editor of the Vietnamese-language daily newspaper Tien Phong , which is published by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, told IPS in an interview.

The lead story in Monday's edition of the Viet Nam News , an English-language daily, conveys the outcome of such meetings. It highlighted the visit by Communist Party Secretary General Nong Duc Manh to the editorial office of the Tien Phong , since the paper was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Fulfill aim

''Newspaper gets pat from Party Leader,'' read the headline above a colour photograph of the bespectacled Manh, smiling, and two columns of text.

The party leader had urged the newspaper to do its ''utmost to fulfill its aim of motivating young people to engage in economic development and national defence,'' the Viet Nam News reported.

He also reminded the staff of editors, reporters and photographers about the greatness of the late Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the leader of its struggle for independence, and the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam for over 20 years.

Tien Phong , an important forum for Vietnamese youth, must uphold Ho Chi Minh's thoughts, virtues and lifestyles and steer them to follow the path blazed by the late president,'' Manh was quoted as having told the assembled staff of the newspaper.

The blandness of such reportage - a tone that runs through newspaper articles in general here -- hardly ruffles the likes of the Tien Phong's editor. On the contrary, he considers the stories currently served up to local readers here of ''better quality'' and more ''useful'' to them than what was the staple diet prior to 1985.

''Then the newspaper had more limits. They could only publish one-dimensional articles, and all of them were in praise of someone or something,'' he says. ''Because of that, many people did not buy the newspapers.''

This apparent shift, which was part of Hanoi's attempts to initiate reforms, or, as some local journalists call it, ''the innovative process in Vietnam,'' has over the years resulted in newspapers being given the licence to report about corruption.

Anti-corruption drive

Yet according to a senior journalist based outside Hanoi, this change has not translated into each publication setting its own news agenda about exposing corruption in society.

''It is all part of the government's anti-corruption drive,'' he told IPS on condition of anonymity. ''But at least today, by being able to investigate and write about corrupt officials, we can feel a little bit like real journalists,'' he said. ''Before, we were simply information officers of the Party.''

Among the examples journalists point to as reflecting the change after 'doi moi' or economic renovation was the pursuit of information by one reporter that would be deemed acceptable practice in countries where the media are free. The journalist surreptitiously taped the conversations of officials involved in taking bribes from truck drivers at a weighing station in south Vietnam.

There have also been high-profile stories about a local underworld godfather Nam Cam, corruption cases involving members of the security forces, and scandals about companies linked to the Communist Party.

What is more, as a recent workshop attended by close to 25 journalists revealed, the press does not shy away from asking the odd tough question of government officials. Yet as a Vietnamese journalists explained, that is as far as the spirit of 'doi moi' will permit.

''We are free to ask any questions, but we are not free to write the information we got,'' she says. ''That is how it is.''

For those who have chosen a career in journalism here, a basic requirement is a need to have a good grasp of the country's sacred cows and issues that are untouchable. They include challenging the Communist Party, opposing the prevailing political order, making a case for religious freedom, exposing the hardship endured by Vietnam's ethnic minorities and defending the ideas of those deemed ''dissidents''.

This is among the reasons why Vietnam - despite its ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a global treaty that upholds rights like that to an individual's freedom of expression - is often pilloried by media watchdogs.

This Southeast Asian country was condemned by Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) in its 2003 report on press freedom for stepping up ''repression of dissidents, especially journalists, who use the Internet to put out their news''.

Internet views

Currently, five Vietnamese have been arrested and charged by Hanoi for using the Internet to express views that challenged the political order, including Pham Hong Son.

On Wednesday, 78-year-old Tran Dung Tien, a former bodyguard of Ho Chi Minh, was jailed for ''abusing democratic freedoms''. Tien, who had become an outspoken critic of the government through his signed letters where he called for the release of all political prisoners and for democratic reforms, was arrested in January.

Yet these have not dimmed the enthusiasm of young Vietnamese journalists like Do The Nghia, who feels that the on-line publication he works for, VNExpress , is trying to offer its readers stories that ''are not propaganda''.

For such freedom, however limited, he credits his Swedish university-educated editor, Thang Duc Thang. ''He wants us to focus on what the readers are interested in and we try to be as direct in our writing,'' Nghia, 29, said in an interview at the editorial office of VNExpress in Hanoi.

But despite this publication's record in its almost three years of existence - it is owned by a joint stock company dabbling in technology and gets some 700,000 visits to its site a day, including close to 500,000 from overseas Vietnamese - the limits to media freedom cannot be broached.

''We have been trained about the sensitive issues we cannot write about,'' he reveals. ''But if there are sensitive issues the readers are interested in, we try to write about them in a moderate way.''

But Tien Phong editor Nam finds satisfaction in such restrictions. ''There are no privately owned newspapers in Vietnam. The news we publish has to advance the government's agenda to bring solutions to the people,'' he says.

What some call an Orwellian political climate is for him appropriate for this country of some 80 million people, because ''each country has its own problems and its own solutions''. - IPS