Viet Mercury
(
Vietnamese
:
Vi?t Mercury
) was a
Vietnamese-language
newspaper serving the
Vietnamese American
community in
San Jose
and the surrounding
Silicon Valley
area in
California
. It was published weekly by the
San Jose Mercury News
from 1999 to 2005; it also published daily for a time.
[4]
[1]
It was the first Vietnamese-language newspaper published by an English-language daily,
[5]
[6]
as well as the first non-Hispanic ethnic newspaper published by a major American company.
[2]
Along with the Spanish-language
Nuevo Mundo
, it was one of two non-English weekly newspapers published by the
Mercury News
.
Content
[
edit
]
Viet Mercury
was written in
Vietnamese
. Between 15% and 20% of
Viet Mercury
'
s stories also ran in English in the
Mercury News
, half were translated from wire reports, and original reporting by the paper's staff accounted for the rest of the stories.
[5]
Viet Mercury
adhered to mainstream journalistic standards. Its reports avoided taking sides on contentious issues, in contrast to the community-owned papers, which often engaged in
advocacy journalism
.
[7]
[2]
Like English-language publications, it referred to the former South Vietnamese capital as "
Ho Chi Minh City
" rather than "Saigon".
[2]
Whereas community-owned papers' advertisers were mostly Vietnamese-owned businesses,
Viet Mercury
attracted non-Vietnamese-owned businesses through bundled deals that also included space in the
Mercury News
and
Nuevo Mundo
.
[5]
[8]
Web banners
were also available on the VietMercury.com website.
[9]
The September 3, 1999, issue was 176 pages long, 80% of it taken up by advertising.
[2]
An issue in March 2000 was nearly 200 pages long, 75% of it advertising.
[10]
History
[
edit
]
In the 1990s,
Santa Clara County
was home to some 120,000 Vietnamese Americans, who owned over 5,000 businesses.
[5]
The greater
San Francisco Bay Area
was even more Vietnamese speakers, one of the largest concentrations in the United States. A two-year-long market study sponsored by
Knight Ridder
found that 58% of Vietnamese-American newspaper readers preferred to read stories in Vietnamese instead of English.
[2]
Another study put this figure higher, at 93%.
[10]
Other research found that Vietnamese residents of San Jose read three or four newspapers per day. In 1998, there were 14 local Vietnamese newspapers, four of them publishing daily.
[10]
During this time, the
San Jose Mercury News
expanded its coverage of the area's ethnic communities, to national acclaim,
[7]
[11]
hiring Vietnamese-speaking reporters for the first time.
[12]
Mercury News
articles on Vietnamese American topics were regularly translated and republished in Vietnamese-language newspapers nationwide. In 1994, after the United States lifted its trade embargo on Vietnam (see
United States?Vietnam relations
), the
Mercury News
opened a
foreign bureau
in
Hanoi
, becoming the first of two American daily newspapers to have a presence in Vietnam after the
Vietnam War
.
[5]
[1]
The
Mercury News
occasionally ran stories translated into Vietnamese.
[2]
The Vietnamese-language weekly magazine
Th? Tr??ng T? Do
(Free Market) had planned to expand into a broadsheet as a joint venture with the
Mercury News
. However,
Th? Tr??ng T? Do
and
Mercury News
publisher
Jay T. Harris
disagreed over who would own a controlling interest in the paper, and the deal fell through.
[13]
Viet Magazine
also attempted unsuccessfully to form a joint venture with the
Mercury News
.
[14]
Some time later, on January 29, 1999, the
Mercury News
published the first issue of
Viet Mercury
, to mixed reviews from the local Vietnamese community. Some appreciated the new paper's news coverage, while others were opposed to Knight Ridder's approach of competing with community papers instead of partnering with them.
[5]
[10]
With an initial weekly circulation of about 17,500
[5]
that grew to 23,600 the following year,
[8]
it dwarfed each of the Vietnamese-owned weeklies in an already crowded market. Owners of existing dailies and weeklies complained of unfair competition for advertisers
[5]
and accused
Mercury News
publisher Knight Ridder of attempting to kill the independent ethnic press.
[10]
On the other hand, Harris sent a letter to competing newspapers implying that they had stolen his issues from news racks.
[2]
[14]
Within months of
Viet Mercury
'
s publication,
Vietnam Family
(
Gia đinh
) and another Vietnamese paper failed.
[10]
Viet Mercury
became profitable in 2000.
[15]
With circulation rising to 35,000,
Viet Mercury
began publishing daily in March 2003.
[1]
Unlike its competitors,
Viet Mercury
operated like a mainstream news outlet, with a full-time staff that produced original reporting and had access to the
Mercury News
Hanoi bureau.
[7]
An investigative series by
Viet Mercury
uncovered doctors embezzling money from recent immigrants, leading to the arrests of several doctors.
[16]
Viet Mercury
also uncovered a
Medicare fraud
scheme in 2003 in collaboration with
Mercury News
reporters.
[17]
Advertising revenues fell after the
dot-com bubble
ended, causing
Viet Mercury
to operate at a loss. On October 21, 2005, the
Mercury News
announced the sale of
Viet Mercury
to a group of Vietnamese-American investors led by Jim Nguyen.
[3]
[7]
The proposed sale was controversial within the local Vietnamese community, because Nguyen had worked to promote closer economic ties with Communist-led
Vietnam
, including the naming of
Ho Chi Minh City
as a
sister city of San Francisco
in 1995.
[18]
[1]
The paper published its final issue on November 11, 2005,
[7]
and it was expected that the investors would begin publication of a successor,
VietUSA News
, on December 2.
[19]
However, the deal fell through.
[20]
Two community-owned newspapers were founded in the wake of
Viet Mercury
'
s closure.
[20]
Former
Viet Mercury
managing editor
Hoang Xuan Nguyen
founded the
alternative weekly
Viet Tribune
, while editor and publisher De Tran founded
VTimes
.
[21]
Distribution
[
edit
]
Viet Mercury
was distributed free of charge on Fridays at 500 locations, including restaurants, medical offices, and newsracks.
[2]
In its final year of publication,
Viet Mercury
had a weekly circulation of 35,000, ranking first among nine Vietnamese-language newspapers in the San Jose market.
[22]
It had subscribers from outside the local market, including from
Sydney
and
Biloxi, Mississippi
.
[10]
According to the
Mercury News
,
Viet Mercury
was read within Vietnam, particularly by government officials, as the paper was valued for its Overseas Vietnamese perspective.
[3]
Viet Mercury
content was also available online on
VietMercury.com
, which was initially a separate website then later a section of the
Mercury News
website. Vietnamese text was encoded in the
VNI
character encoding.
Notable people
[
edit
]
Editors:
Contributors:
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
Bui V?n Phu (November 7, 2005).
"Khai sinh va khai t? c?a m?t t? bao Vi?t ch? M?"
[The birth and death of an American-owned Vietnamese newspaper].
Talawas
(in Vietnamese)
. Retrieved
June 22,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
Berthelsen, Christian (September 13, 1999).
"Media: Vietnamese Paper Angers Its Competitors"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
Boudreau, John (October 22, 2005).
"Viet Merc sold; Mundo to close"
.
San Jose Mercury News
. Knight Ridder
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
"About Vi?t Mercury. (San Jose, CA) 1999-????"
.
Chronicling America
. National Digital Newspaper Program
. Retrieved
June 16,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Delevett, Peter; Goldfisher, Alastair (February 28, 1999).
"Viet Merc stirs emotions"
.
Silicon Valley Business Journal
. American City Business Journals
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
"Vi?t Mercury co ch? nhi?m m?i"
[Viet Mercury has a new editor].
Vietnam Daily News
(in Vietnamese). February 7, 2002
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Lam, Andrew
(October 28, 2005).
"Sale of Viet Mercury Troubles Bay Area Vietnamese"
.
Berkeley Daily Planet
.
Pacific News Service
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Fitzgerald, Kate (August 28, 2000).
"San Jose paper bundles buys across languages"
.
Advertising Age
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
"Than tr?ng gi?i thi?u VietMercury.com"
[Introducing VietMercury.com].
Viet Mercury
(in Vietnamese). Knight Ridder.
Archived
from the original on December 5, 2001
. Retrieved
July 23,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Tindall, Blair (December 15, 2000).
"Goliath Arrives and a Few Davids Depart"
.
Nieman Reports
. Nieman Foundation for Journalism
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
Stoll, Michael (October 21, 2005).
"Mercury News will shed 2 ethnic papers, 5 local 'Guide' editions"
.
Grade the News
.
San Jose State University
School of Journalism and Mass Communications
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
"History of 750 Ridder Park Drive"
.
750 Ridder Park Drive
. History San Jose.
- ^
Tr?n C?ng S?n (October 22, 2005).
"Vi?t Mercury D?p Ti?m !"
[Viet Mercury Goes Out of Business].
SaigonUSA
(in Vietnamese)
. Retrieved
June 22,
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Harper, Will (May 6, 1999).
"Viet Offensive"
.
Metro Silicon Valley
. Metro Newspapers
. Retrieved
June 24,
2018
.
- ^
Hispanic Business
. Hispanic Business Publications. 2001. p. 2 – via Google Books.
- ^
Harte, Julia (July 5, 2006).
"De Tran: A Pioneer in Vietnamese-Language Media"
.
New America Media
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
"Elderly Vietnamese in Santa Clara County, Calif., Are Pawns in Medicare Scam"
.
San Jose Mercury News
. Knight Ridder. November 13, 2003. Archived from
the original
on June 17, 2018
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
– via HighBeam Research.
- ^
Tr?n C?ng S?n (November 24, 2005).
"V? Mua Ban 'Vi?t Mercury' Khong Thanh"
[Sale of 'Viet Mercury' Unsuccessful].
Vi?t Bao Daily News
(in Vietnamese)
. Retrieved
June 22,
2018
.
- ^
"To our loyal readers and advertisers"
.
Viet Mercury
.
Knight Ridder
. November 2005. Archived from
the original
on November 25, 2005.
- ^
a
b
Hoang Kh?i Phong (May 28, 2006).
"Ph?ng v?n nha v?n Nguy?n Xuan Hoang v? t? bao Viet Tribune m?i ra m?t t?i San Jose"
(in Vietnamese).
Radio Free Asia
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
Kaplan, Tracey (September 14, 2014).
"Hoang Xuan Nguyen, prominent Vietnamese editor, dies at 74"
.
San Jose Mercury News
. Knight Ridder
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.
- ^
Colby, Edward B. (October 24, 2005).
"So It Begins: Outsourcing the Newsroom"
.
Columbia Journalism Review
. Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
. Retrieved
June 17,
2018
.