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The Data Journalism Podcast

The Data Journalism Podcast

By Alberto Cairo & Simon Rogers

Hosts Alberto Cairo and Simon Rogers will explore the latest in data journalism. You will meet the world’s top data journalists - and you will find out how they do what they do.

Subscribe to see how data is changing the world of journalism forever.

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Currently playing episode

How Axios brings smart brevity to data journalism

The Data Journalism PodcastSep 15, 2022

00:00
37:41
Anna Brand: data journalism for CNN

Anna Brand: data journalism for CNN

Anna Brand is the Managing Editor for Data and Graphics at CNN Digital. She chats with Simon and Alberto about building a data journalism team at the news outlet, explains how it works and what inspires her.

The⁠ ⁠music this week⁠⁠, made with⁠ ⁠TwoTone⁠⁠, is based on the data behind this CNN Digital story about Halloween candy.

Jan 10, 202426:58
Holiday special: why data storytelling matters

Holiday special: why data storytelling matters

It’s a different kind of podcast this week: Simon and Alberto talk about Alberto’s latest book, The Art of Insight, why data journalism is still a dream job and our approaches to working with numbers to tell stories. Find out what books got us here - and what we care about most, when it comes to data storytelling.


The ⁠music this week⁠, made with ⁠TwoTone⁠, is based on snowfall in Central Park from 1869 from ⁠this dataset⁠, via weather.gov.

Dec 18, 202344:12
"Hungary is a data journalism superpower"

"Hungary is a data journalism superpower"

Attila Bátorfy is a data journalist operating in Viktor Orbán's Hungary, heading up ATLO and pioneering the field in the country as a teacher and practitioner. Find out why he believes Hungary is the country to watch for data storytelling.

Music by ⁠TwoTone⁠, based on data about rising Hungary's falling population. You can hear the ⁠full (long) track here⁠.

Dec 04, 202333:03
Data journalism at The Guardian
Oct 12, 202301:00:23
Alan Smith: Inside the FT's data journalism operation

Alan Smith: Inside the FT's data journalism operation

Alan Smith is a rare breed: he leads the FT's team of data reporters and designers, but has a background in the stuffy world of official statistics as former head of digital content at the UK's Office for National Statistics. Alan is also author of How Charts Work, a handbook on designing with data using the FT's principles.

He chats with Simon and Alberto about his approach to data journalism and how to make numbers accessible for everyone.




Aug 09, 202334:31
Data journalism in Kenya, with Eunice Magwambo

Data journalism in Kenya, with Eunice Magwambo

This week we meet data journalist Eunice Magwambo, whose team has trained over 2,000 journalists in data journalism and visualisation and is part of a new movement of talented data reporters in the region. She talks about how data journalism in Africa is different, the appetite for data-led stories and the importance of sharing those visuals.


You can find more of Eunice's work here.

Jun 14, 202337:11
Live from Perugia: Data Journalism in Small Newsrooms

Live from Perugia: Data Journalism in Small Newsrooms

Recorded live at the International Journalism Fesitival in Perugia, Italy on April 21, 2023. This panel brought together some great practitioners producing award-winning data journalism in small newsrooms and sometimes on their own. Moderated by Simon, the panel includes:

Yvette Cabrera, Center for Public Integrity

Miguel Angel Dobrich, Dobcast, Uruguay

Yao-Hua Law, Macaranga, Malaysia

Sisi Wei, The Markup, US

Great data journalism is often seen as a resource-intensive exercise that only huge newsrooms can afford to indulge in. But the speakers in this panel prove that's not the case. Working in small teams - sometimes alone - they managed to pull off some of the year's best work. Learn from their experiences, tips and techniques.

Organised in association with Sigma Awards.

Apr 26, 202351:54
Live from Perugia: The State of Data Journalism Today at the International Journalism Festival

Live from Perugia: The State of Data Journalism Today at the International Journalism Festival

It's a different kind of episode! Live from the 2023 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, this session features co-host Simon plus the following great speakers:

Tara Kelly, data editor at the European Journalism Centre

Sondre Solstad is The Economist’s Senior Data Journalist

Moderated by Lars Boering, director of the EJC

The session looks at how data journalists work, who they collaborate with, and the latest trends and sought after skills within the field. These are just some of the questions The State of Data Journalism Survey 2022 asks journalists from around the world every year. From identifying favourite data tools to sharing thoughts on the future of the field, this panel discussion delves into the current state of data journalism.



Apr 21, 202353:40
The Sigmas: inside the world's data journalism awards

The Sigmas: inside the world's data journalism awards

How do you judge data journalism in 2023? The Sigma Data Journalism Awards is the only global award for the field and this episode sees Simon and Alberto chatting with Gina ChuaAron PilhoferKuek Ser Kuang Keng and Marianne Bouchart to discuss the state of data journalism today, the point of the awards and what's happening next.

The music is based on daily entries for the awards this season. You can create your own with Two Tone here. Download the full track here.


Mar 30, 202331:20
Rani Molla: data for journalism

Rani Molla: data for journalism

Rani Molla is a senior correspondent at Vox Media, reporting for Recode on the intersection between work, technology and the future. She uses data to tell stories every day, whether it's about our return to the office (or lack of), the impacts of AI on our world or the rise of burnout.

In the latest episode of the pod, we chat about how she uses data to tell stories, her favourite tools and why data always makes journalism better.

The music this week, made with TwoTone, is historical quit rates data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mar 20, 202326:25
Florence Nightingale and the history of dataviz

Florence Nightingale and the history of dataviz

RJ Andrews is the founder of data design studio Info We Trust and author of a new series of books delving into the deep history of of data visualisation and storytelling. In this episode of the pod, he talks about three significant parts of the history of data visuals: Florence Nightingale, Emma Willard and Étienne-Jules Marey. While Nightingale created powerful visuals that changed how we understand mortality, Willard portrayed time itself. And Marey wrote a guide to visualising data that seems current today. You can buy the books here.

The music this week, made with TwoTone, is life expectancy, based on a dataset used in the Nightingale book and provided to us by RJ. Life expectancy at birth is defined as the average number of years that a newborn could expect to live if he or she were to pass through life subject to the age-specific mortality rates of a given period. Data compiled by Our World in Data based on estimates by James C. Riley, Clio Infra, and the United Nations Population Division.

Mar 13, 202341:10
The science of dataviz, with Jen Christiansen

The science of dataviz, with Jen Christiansen

Jen Christiansen is the author of Building Science Graphics (published by A K Peters/CRC Press) and a senior graphics editor at Scientific American.

In this episode of the pod, she talks about her approach to visualising scientific stories and to graphics, based on her long career in the field. "For any scientist to  have their work in the lab or in the field and be worthwhile, you need to communicate it to someone - whether you're communicating it to your peers or to the broader public or to funders ... And I think that most training has been focused on making sure people can write, but we don't have a lot of training for everyone in terms of design fundamentals and different languages you can use that are pictorial to help get your point across and to help people have greater understanding of what it is that you're doing."

The music this week, made with TwoTone, is Radio Observations of the Pulse Profiles and Dispersion Measures of Twelve Pulsars from this dataset, supplied to us by Jen.

Feb 27, 202335:05
CNN's Harry Enten: Data for TV

CNN's Harry Enten: Data for TV

Harry Enten (@forecasterenten on Twitter) is one of the most-high-profile data journalists in the world. He explains the numbers every day on CNN - whether it's election polling, sports or even his original passion: meterology, specifically snowstorms.

"I definitely see myself as a storyteller," says Enten and he chats with Alberto and Simon about his approach to making the numbers understandable for a TV audience, which charts work (and which don't), as well as who is in his head each time he presents. 

They also discuss polling and how to report on the nuances of surveys. "I wonder about what's the best way to present uncertainty all the time."

"I understand the data better than the audience does because I sit with the data for such a long period of time," he says. "And I almost have to step back and be like, okay, if I didn't know this topic, if let's say this is about people's favorite soups or something to do with cooking that I don't understand at all, what can I take away from this graphic? Would I really be able to understand it?"

The music this week, made with TwoTone, is based on snowfall in Central Park from 1869 from this dataset, via weather.gov.

Jan 30, 202335:22
Nigel Holmes: the joy of data

Nigel Holmes: the joy of data

Nigel Holmes is a graphic designer, author, and theorist, who focuses on information graphics and information design. He's also the author of a new book, Joyful Infographics, a personal journey through visual design. Alberto and Simon chat with Nigel about why humanity and fun is so vital in graphics.

The music this week, made with TwoTone, is is based on honey production in the US, from 1998 to 2012.

Dec 12, 202231:10
Nathan Yau: the flow of dataviz

Nathan Yau: the flow of dataviz

Nathan Yau is behind one of the world's most influential data journalism and visualisation websites: Flowing Data. A statistician, Nathan started the site as a resource for students but it has become a go-to destination to find out the latest in data journalism. We discuss why dataviz matters, how to learn R and the quiz of the week.

The music this week, made with TwoTone, is the percentage of people sleeping on a weekday in 30-minute intervals, based on the American Time Use Survey 2020



Nov 25, 202223:21
Amanda Cox: bringing facts to the people
Oct 31, 202231:56
How Axios brings smart brevity to data journalism

How Axios brings smart brevity to data journalism

The Axios team have spearheaded 'smart brevity', but how does that apply to data journalism and data visualisation? Alberto and Simon chat with the team that makes it happen: Danielle Alberti, Jacque Schrag and Will Chase about how they work and what makes a project 'Axios'. 

You can check out the midterms project the team worked on with Google Trends data here.  Here are some more projects mentioned in the episode:

Variants tracker

1 million deaths

Poll worker map

Pie swarm

The music for this episode is based on Axios data visual requests, compiled by the team. It was built with TwoTone, a tool that turns data into music.

Sep 15, 202237:41
Inside the New York Times Graphics Team

Inside the New York Times Graphics Team

Archie Tse is the Graphics Director at The New York Times. He has been at The Times since 1995, and he has pioneered graphics reporting, often in person - especially after 9/11, traveling to Iraq to cover the US invasion, and reporting on the capture of Saddam Hussein. He is even credited by some with being an early adopter of identifying Republicans with the colour red and Democrats with the colour blue after his election 2000 maps.

Alberto and Simon discuss how his team works, his approach to data visualisation and journalism - and whether he prefers tree maps or pie charts. 

The music is created with TwoTone and is based on US honey production data.



Aug 25, 202236:13
Information is Beautiful: an interview with David McCandless

Information is Beautiful: an interview with David McCandless

One of the most successful published data journalists in the world today, David McCandless has a new book out: Beautiful News. His work is innovative, newsy, current and incredibly popular with readers — but sometimes controversial with what he calls the "chart police". 

Alberto and Simon chat with David about why he gets such Marmite-type reactions to his work, how Hans Rosling opened our eyes to the power of data visualisation and the nature of beauty.

The music for today's episode is world GDP, made with TwoTone, which turns numbers into tunes.

Jun 08, 202237:30
Jessica Huseman: data stories for the US Midterm elections

Jessica Huseman: data stories for the US Midterm elections

Election reporting has become one of the most important journalism beats in America as we barrel towards the midterm elections. How can data journalism help?

Jessica Huseman has become the face of election reporting in America. Editorial Director at Votebeat, she also owns the data journalism training organistion Friendly State News and previously worked at ProPublica on the Electionland project. Jessica chats with Alberto and Simon about the stakes in election reporting this cycle - and how data makes everything better.

The music this episode is made with made with TwoTone and is the sound of Midterm election turnouts from 1790 to 2018. 

May 09, 202234:03
A Data Journalist in Ukraine

A Data Journalist in Ukraine

Anatoliy Bondarenko is Data editor at Texty.org.ua, an award-winning news and data site in Ukraine, from where he joins Alberto and Simon to discuss his life in a war zone as a data journalist.

His team's work to analyse misinformation has won a Sigma data journalism award for best News Application and they are still producing great data journalism today, even as the country is under attack. 

Some of his team's pieces include this analysis of satellite images of Russian military bases, an investigation into illegal amber mining in Ukraine  and this interactive on corruption.


Mar 10, 202223:28
Data journalism for the people! Ben Welsh and MaryJo Webster on the state of local data journalism

Data journalism for the people! Ben Welsh and MaryJo Webster on the state of local data journalism

How do you make data journalism that matters to people about where they live? In the latest Data Journalism Podcast, Alberto and Simon explore local data journalism with two of the leading practitioners of the field.

MaryJo Webster is the data editor for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and has devoted herself to training data journalists. Ben Welsh is the editor of the Data and Graphics Department at the LA Times, who also leads a new data partnership with the Big Local News Project.

The music this episode is made with made with TwoTone and is the sound of American Football, based on 538’s NFL ELO ratings.

Feb 09, 202245:43
2021 in data journalism: Scott Klein on how ProPublica does it, plus our favourite projects of the year

2021 in data journalism: Scott Klein on how ProPublica does it, plus our favourite projects of the year

Scott Klein leads the teams at ProPublica that work at the intersection of journalism and technology. His teams have been recognized with a Peabody Award, several Online Journalism Awards for General Excellence, Malofiej International Infographics Award medals, the Data Journalism Award Jurors Choice Award, as well as Society for News Design Awards of Excellence, including one special recognition for “defining the design language of data-driven news apps.”

Scott is also co-founder of DocumentCloud, a service that helps news organizations search, manage and present their source documents. He sits on the board of the Muckrock Foundation.

Scott, Alberto and Simon chat about the state of data journalism in 2021, how ProPublica does it and how journalism is at the forefront of innovation.

We also talked about these projects:

The music this week is based on holiday search interest, and made with TwoTone.

Dec 17, 202137:38
Inside The Pudding

Inside The Pudding

Matt Daniels and Caitlyn Ralph are just two of the team behind The Pudding, a visual collective of great visual data journalism - where you can find great longform data journalism such as this hunt for the internet’s oldest image, this guide to why women’s pockets are inferior and how many times a character says “cool” in Community.

And The Pudding crew also have a commercial arm too: Polygraph, which produces visuals such as the ones you can find on this page on the Google Trends site.

Alberto and Simon chat visual journalism with Matt and Caitlyn and find out exactly how you can run a design agency and a cool collective in one go.

The music this week is based on the inflation time series index published by the Bureau  of Labor Statistics, and made with TwoTone.

Nov 17, 202149:47
Eva Constanteras: doing data journalism in Afghanistan, Myanmar and across the Global South

Eva Constanteras: doing data journalism in Afghanistan, Myanmar and across the Global South

Eva Constantaras is a data journalist with Internews and Lighthouse Reports who works around the world to establish data journalism units to tell public interest stories. She has worked with data journalists in Afghanistan, Myanmar and many other places around the world where numbers can make a difference.

Eva chats on the podcast about data journalism in failing states and her process to help reporters tell those hidden stories. 

Read Eva's chapter for the new version of the Data Journalism Handbook, on data journalism and marginalised communities.

The music this week is based on a dataset of numbers of dams that was used as part of this story from Myanmar, and made with TwoTone.

Sep 28, 202131:56
The Census data was published. What does it mean for data journalists?

The Census data was published. What does it mean for data journalists?

Angeliki Kastanis is a data journalist at The Associated Press and an expert on the US Census. 

They talk with Alberto and Simon about what the 2020 Census data released so far told us, offers tips and tricks for getting the most out of it for reporters - and even working as a Census enumerator. 

Key links: censusreporter, AP Census Hub

The music this week is based on the US Census (data from the Big Local News Project), and made with TwoTone.

Aug 20, 202131:54
US Census bonus episode

US Census bonus episode

Tomorrow (August 12) sees the release of crucial US Census redistricting data - which will shape US government and politics for the next crucial election cycles. It will also give us unique insights into the changing demographic makeup of regions across the US. Alberto and Simon chat with Joe Germuska (executive director at @KnightLab and Project lead @CensusReporter) and Cheryl Phillips (Data/investigative journalism lecturer @Stanford and Founder of @biglocalnews). 

Want to know what to expect — and how to tell stories with it? This is the podcast for you.

The music this week is based on the US Census (data from the Big Local News Project), and made with TwoTone.

Aug 11, 202119:06
Stuart Thompson and Sergio Peçanha: how to use data for comment
Jul 30, 202133:10
COVID data journalism special episode

COVID data journalism special episode

In the latest episode of the pod, Alberto and Simon get to grips with COVID19 data and the challenges of reporting on the numbers during a pandemic. 

Financial Times senior visual journalist John Burn-Murdoch explains how he hunts for the key data and talks through what he thinks we will see happening next. 

The Covid Tracking Project's co-founder Alexis Madrigal talks about how to gather data where there is none — and how misinformation flourishes in a vacuum.

The music that opens this episode is the sound of Covid vaccination rates data from the CDC (listen to the full tune here). You can create your own data tunes with Two Tone.

Jun 08, 202150:21
How to make data journalism for humans

How to make data journalism for humans

In this episode Alberto and Simon talk to Lam Thuy Vo, a polymath data journalist who works for Buzzfeed and teaches at CUNY. We discussed her data-driven investigative stories, her quantified self projects, and her interest in providing learning resources for data journalists from underrepresented communities. 

Next, we talked to visualization designers Shirley Wu and Nadieh Bremer about their recent book ‘Data Sketches' (and how to avoid working with or for a-holes). Here's a great example of their work for The Guardian.

The music that opens this second episode is the sound of Covid vaccination rates data from the CDC (listen to the full tune here). You can create your own data tunes with Two Tone.

May 14, 202101:13:00
How do you judge data journalism?

How do you judge data journalism?

In this first episode, we go inside the Sigma Awards - the only global award for data journalism. Joining Alberto and Simon are journalists Gina Chua, Aron Pilhofer, Kuek Ser Kuang Keng and Marianne Bouchart to discuss the state of data journalism today, the point of awards and what's happening next.

The music is based on historic data of the US economy, such as GDP and revenue. You can create your own with Two Tone here. Download the full track.

Apr 27, 202153:10
TEASER: Introducing The Data Journalism Podcast

TEASER: Introducing The Data Journalism Podcast

New: welcome to The Data Journalism Podcast, the first podcast devoted to doing journalism with numbers.

Hosts Alberto Cairo and Simon Rogers  will explore the latest in data journalism. You will meet the world’s top data journalists - and you will find out how they do what they do.

Subscribe to see how data is changing the world of journalism forever.

Apr 22, 202101:18