The annual ABU New Media Workshop took place as a virtual event this year from 24-26 March with more than 20participants from 11 organisations. Under the theme data-driven storytelling, the three-day workshop focused on exploring the impact of telling stories with data by looking at different forms of data-driven storytelling from around the world.

Each day the sessions ran for two hours in an interactive setting with hands-on, follow-along exercises and group discussions. The workshop also looked into what makes a good data story and the skillset and workflow required to create successful data stories. Participants were divided into groups in Zoom Breakout Rooms in which they discussed hypotheses and questions that they could develop into data stories back at their organisations. The workshop was led by Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, who is an award-winning digital journalist, data journalism trainer and media consultant based in Malaysia.

The organisations that participated in the workshop were BB-Bangladesh, Metro TV-Indonesia, Khabar Agency-Kazakhstan, TDM-Macau, IPPTAR-Malaysia, LDMG-Mauritius, MRTV-Myanmar, Padamyar FM-Myanmar, VTV-Pakistan, Mediacorp-Singapore and Thai PBS-Thailand.

This was the 5th edition of the annual new media workshop series which has previously been held in Kuala Lumpur (2016 & 2018), Macau, China (2019) and Mauritius (2020).