At the 2025 Journalism Forum, the discussion session titled "Conquering Gen Z Readers: Decoding the Success Formula" attracted significant participation from young people.

Phung Cong Suong, Editor-in-Chief of Tien Phong Newspaper, said Gen Z includes those born between 1996 and 2012– a generation that grew up in a digital environment, with thriving internet and smartphone development, closely tied to the rise of numerous social media platforms.

Gen Z are fast-news consumers, spending most of their time on short video platforms such as TikTok, Instagram reels, Facebook reels and YouTube shorts, preferring creative, highly entertaining content.

Gen Z accounts for 32 percent of the population in Vietnam. By 2032, they are estimated to be the primary audience that companies, organizations, and media outlets need to target.

"With the estimated purchasing power reaching hundreds of billion of dollars annually, no industry wants to overlook this group. Media is no exception," Suong said.

“I don’t agree with the viewpoint that young people today don’t read newspapers. They simply have a different and diverse way of feeding themselves with news, creating challenges for all media organizations."

He said thr core question is not only how to attract this group but also how to retain them long-term on media platforms.

Newsrooms need to re-establish brand name

To address this challenge, Ngo Bich Ngoc, Communication and Journalism Dean at Swinburne University Vietnam, suggested that newsrooms re-establish their "brand name," treating the newsroom as a brand and readers as customers. This requires carefully building a customer persona, using characteristics from the marketing industry.

She emphasized the need to deeply study Gen Z’s behavior, a diverse audience with varying behaviors across platforms (relaxing on Instagram, consuming news on TikTok, etc.).

Ngoc believes that Gen Z is a conscious consumer generation, valuing "authenticity" in brands, services, and experiences. They also have a strong sense of national pride and patriotism.

Building a newsroom’s brand image with core values, particularly emphasizing national identity, individuality, and authenticity, can easily foster goodwill and trust among Gen Z.

"When Gen Z feels an affinity, they tend to trust and consume a newsroom’s products, fostering audience loyalty, a fundamental trait of media audiences in general," Ngoc said.

She also highlighted the importance of training future journalists and communicators to meet the demands of this new context.

The 2nd National Journalism Forum took place over 1.5 days with 12 sessions (opening, closing, and 10 in-depth discussion sessions).

N. Huyen