RIYADH: Mustafa Alsaleh, Communications & Public Relations at Argaam, discussed during the MEDIATHON dialogue sessions the idea of Argaam portal launch, which emerged in February 2006 from the womb of economically pessimistic times. The aim was to provide accurate information. This is evident in the acquisition of Argaam by Saudi Research and Media Group - formerly, Saudi Research and Marketing Group - in 2017, which was driven by SRMG’s confidence in Argaam to be the future mouthpiece of economic journalism. In his presentation themed “Media Data Collection and Analysis”, Alsaleh highlighted the working principles of Argaam’s team, which focus on meeting audience demand, knowledge of the context of news, and providing suitable interactive tools for audience response. The main target of Argaam’s team is the follow-up of all data of any kind whatsoever, as long as such data receive reader response and are important for Argaam readers to stay abreast of new issues. Alsaleh affirmed that government and official authorities are the main sources of Argaam to ensure reliability for its readers. Having analyzed data, Argaam team makes various news stories and quality reports that analyze data over long periods of time based on the cumulative data arising from continuous follow-up. On the other hand, Alsaleh highlighted the lack of specialist professional cadres in data processing as one of the biggest challenges to data journalists. He also cited the cost of technology infrastructure that includes programming complexities, adding that return on investment in such business takes a long time to turn into profit. Closing his presentation, Alsaleh said Argaam team makes the best of its available data to create different types of content and launch other channels in different media to attract all categories of audience. It is worth noting that the virtual Mediathon dialogue sessions were launched in mid-May on the sidelines of the Media Race (Mediathon), to shed light on quality media experience with the aim of linking interested parties and specialists with media professionals locally and internationally. Among participants were Google News Initiative, YouTube in support of effective content and Al Arabiya TV channel. You can watch all dialogue sessions of Mediathon on: mediathon.media.gov.sa Mediathon is an event in which media professionals and interested parties compete to create quality initiatives, projects, and innovative solutions to media challenges. It is one of the projects of the Center of Government Communication (CGC) at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, in cooperation with stc.