Meet the Vietnam Anti-Fake News Center, the newest kid on the fact-checking block in Southeast Asia. It doesn’t work like fact-checkers work elsewhere, but the COVID-19 infodemic has created new spaces for such initiatives within the limits of the media scene.

It wasn’t easy to discuss issues of gender, be it the sexual abuse of women and girls or discrimination in the workplace, but Vietnamese journalists and growing sections of the media have been creating space for this. Tran Thi Thuy Binh of Hanoi Radio and Television tells us more in this in-depth feature.

Media have contributed to the campaign to bring child sex abuse cases to the public eye, bring justice to the victims and their families, and increase public awareness of the rights of young people and their families. But some media reportage, of the type that violate children’s rights and expose them and their families to more injustice and prejudice, have also been a problem, Tran Thi Thuy Binh of Hanoi Radio and Television reports.

More than 20 years after Vietnam joined ASEAN, ASEAN’s work and impact have not seen much in-depth coverage – or media interest – in the country. Nguyen Ngoc Tran looks into why this is so in this commentary for Reporting ASEAN.