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Data journalism, podcast

CNN’s Harry Enten: Data for TV

Harry Enten, pic: CNN

Harry Enten (@forecasterenten) 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.

Listen to the latest episode of the Data Journalism Podcast here.

About Simon Rogers

Data journalist, writer, speaker. Author of 'Facts are Sacred', from Faber & Faber and a range of infographics for children books from Candlewick. Edited and launched the Guardian Datablog. Now works for Google in California as Data Editor and is Director of the Sigma awards for data journalism.

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About me

Data journalist, writer, speaker. Author of 'Facts are Sacred', published by Faber & Faber and a new range of infographics for children books from Candlewick. Data editor at Google, California. Formerly at Twitter, San Francisco. Created the Guardian Datablog. All opinions on this site are mine, not my employers'. Read more >>

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