This study examines the resilience of investigative journalists in Vietnam’s socialist media system. Motivated by the scarcity of empirical work on journalists’ well-being in highly regulated media environments despite high exposure to trauma and coercion, we conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 12 investigative journalists from national and local outlets. The interviews were transcribed in Vietnamese and analyzed inductively using thematic analysis. Participants identified three principal risk domains: legal–political pressures, intimidation and retaliation, and psychological impact. Protective factors and coping strategies operate at multiple levels: individual, interpersonal, and organizational or familial. Formal mental health or institutional support was largely absent, increasing reliance on informal networks; personal ethics and integrity functioned as anchors of moral resilience. The findings indicate resilience as a dynamic, social-ecological process that compensates for weak institutional protections through collective support and value-driven coping, extending resilience scholarship to an a state-regulated media setting and suggesting practical priorities for newsrooms and advocates, such as legal safeguards, safety protocols, peer-support mechanisms, and trauma-literacy training.
Anh et al. (Wed,) studied this question.