30 July, 2014
The Vietnamese media industry is changing as it faces growing competition from the Internet. One website has come up with a way to reach out to young people. It uses rap music to report the news.
That was the rap version of a report about the end of football's World Cup in Brazil. To date, there have been nearly 20 editions of Rap New Plus. Most of the programs include stories covered in Vietnam's traditional media.
Rap News Plus is published mainly on video sharing websites like YouTube. Some videos have been watched over 500,000 times.
Le Quoc Minh works for Viet Nam Plus. He says he wanted to find a way to make news appealing to people between the ages of 13 and 25. He says that age group has lost interest in traditional news.
Rappers Vo Viet Phuong, left, and Nguyen Trong Duc record Rap News Plus at Vietnam News Agency's studio in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 2014. (Marianne Brown)
"We need to bring them something new, something interesting, something funny. But the way we select topics and the way we present it is serious enough. So I bring the seriousness to the young people using their own language, using their own taste, their music. And that's my concept."