As many as 80 percent of people in Vietnam are satisfied with local news coverage, according to a new survey, placing the country in the top five of the 38 countries studied.
Up to 85 percent of Vietnamese people said local news outlets do a good job of covering the most important issues, compared to the average rate of 73 percent, the survey conducted by Pew Research Center, a U.S.-based nonpartisan think tank, found.
In terms of whether the media are doing a good job of reporting the news accurately and news about government leaders and officials, the rates are also high in Vietnam, standing at 80 and 78 percent.
The average rates for the 38 countries stand at 62 and 59 percent.
Although it looks like people are generally satisfied, a constant demand in nearly every country surveyed is unbiased news coverage.
When it comes to where readers get their news, half of Vietnamese people opt for social media, said the survey, with young people making up the majority of them.
As many as 81 percent of Vietnamese respondents aged 18-29 use social media to access news daily, while only 3 percent of those aged 50 and above do so, said the survey, which interviewed around 1,000 people from each country last year.
More than half of the Vietnamese population of nearly 92 million are online, and people spend more than two hours each day on average on social media, said a report released in July last year by We Are Social, a social media marketing and advertising agency.