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.
“40 Acres and a Lie” tells the true story behind the Civil War–era “40 acres and a mule” program. It was the result of over two years of painstaking research by Alexia Fernández Campbell, April Simpson and Pratheek Rebala. The project won a Sigma Award and a Philip Meyer Data Journalism Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting.Alexia, April and Pratheek join Alberto, Scott and Simon to share their research process in detail. They explain how they used historical data to identify breaking news, and how genealogical tools helped them find living descendants of those impacted by the program.The music this episode, made with TwoTone, represents historical US Census data on ethnicity over time. The Data Journalism Podcast is produced by Ozzy Llinas Goodman. Subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode!
Cheryl Phillips is Hearst Professional in Residence at Stanford University's journalism program, and founder of Big Local News, which empowers journalists with data – and has twice been on Pulitzer prize winning news teams. Now she has devoted herself to empowering journalists with access to the data they need to tell great stories.She joins Alberto, Scott and Simon to discuss the state of public data in the US in 2025, and what her team is doing about it.The music this episode, made with TwoTone, represents the Dow Jones Industrial Index in the week before we recorded this podcast. See if you can guess what happens to it at the end. The Data Journalism Podcast is edited by Ozzy Llinas Goodman. Subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode.Key links from this episode:New York Times: “How Tariffs Work” Reuters: “Tariffs don't all act the same”Washington Post: “Trump's reversal actually increased tariff rates”. This one also used data from the Budget Lab at Yale UniversityData Rescue ProjectData Liberation ProjectData.gov Archive
Chiqui Esteban is Design & Art Director at the Washington Post Opinion section. In the first episode with new co-host Scott Klein, he talks to us about the lessons he's learned during his amazing career, from his early days as a student at a famous visual journalism program in Spain all the way to running the Washington Post's graphics desk, one of the best in the world —and beyond. Chiqui talks about how data journalism and graphics help news stay relevant — and popular—with audiences. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, represents attendence at Chiqui's beloved Cadiz CF football club games. See if you can spot something a little extra in it too.
It was a year in which a Presidential candidate said a chart saved his life, generative AI changed journalism and we worried about whether the field is getting less innovative. Scott Klein is an entrepreneur in residence at Newspack, helping publishers on WordPress and other platforms do great election coverage by building and adopting innovative tools and by working together. He was previously at ProPublica and at THE CITY. He's also on the board of Muckrock. He's based in Brooklyn. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, represents snowfall in NYC's Central Park.
David Spiegelhalter is Emeritus Professor of Statistics in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge and author of new book The Art of Uncertainty We live in chaotic times and David makes that world a little clearer with humour and clarity in this special interview with Alberto and Simon. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, comes from David, and represents the death rates of the patients of murderer Dr Harold Shipman.
Kae Petrin is a data and graphics reporting at Chalkbeat, Votebeat, and Healthbeat, where they produce stories on education and voting rights. Kae is also a co-founder and part of the leadership of the Trans Journalists Association. In the episode we discuss Kae's work, their view of beat-centric news organizations, and the challenges of K-12 education data. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, comes from Kae, and represents truancy rates by different demographic groups.
Garrett Archer is the data analyst at ABC15 in Phoenix, Arizona, where he is a data storyteller and one of the foremost experts on Arizona's election system. As America votes, Garrett will be responsible for reporting the facts in one of the most tightly-fought US elections for decades. Find out how he approaches election data, what makes it different to polling reporting and what will happen on election day in the key swing state on November 5. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, is from Garrett and represents Arizona party registrations over time.
Sisi Wei is the Chief Impact Officer at CalMatters & The Markup, based in New York. Sisi founded the DEI Coalition For Anti-Racist, Equitable, And Just Newsrooms and was the Assistant Managing Editor at ProPublica. She has also won the Gwen Ifill Award. Alberto chats with Sisi about her work and how she approaches telling stories with data. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, is from Sisi and represents rthe temperature in NYC in June 2024
Garance Burke is a global investigative reporter for the Associated Press, with a focus on reporting around Artificial Intelligence. She wrote the chapter of the AP style guide around reporting on AI and leads a team which works with data to tell stories every day. She joins Simon and Alberto to discuss the implications for data journalism. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, is from Garance and represents Bills brought before Congress around AI over time.
How does the Pulitzer Center create such great data journalism? Alberto and Simon are joined by Doménica Montaño, the Center's program coordinator for environmental investigations. Working with terrific data journalists like director Gustavo Faleiros and Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, the team produces groundbreaking data work. Doménica explains what it takes to make that work come to life. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, is based on tree cover in Brazil.
Dan Kopf and Nami Sumida join Simon and Alberto to discuss how the SF Chronicle tells data stories, such as Sumida's recent exploration of the city's Japantown (sub required) and the WW2 internment that nearly destroyed it. The team discuss what makes the Bay Area such a rich source of data journalism and how the Chron approaches it each day. The music this episode, made with TwoTone, is US Berkeley's in-state acceptance rate.
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.
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.
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.
The Guardian's Pamela Duncan and Ashley Kirk join Simon to talk about how data journalism has changed since he was there, how the news organisation works today and what is coming next. Music by TwoTone, based on data from this story about rising surface temperatures. You can hear the full (long) track here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Chua, Aron Pilhofer, Kuek 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Amanda Cox is Head of Special Data Projects at USAFacts, an unrivaled source of public data in the US. She's also an established data journalist and former editor of the NYT's Upshot data journalism section. As the winner of multiple awards, she's been referred to as the "Michael Phelps of infographics". She chats with Simon and Alberto about her career, how she feels about treemaps and how to put data out into the world. The music this week, made with TwoTone, is the S&P 500 index over time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Atlantic's Covid tracker Which birds are jerks Using old ships logs to record historic weather A room, a bar and a classroom The music this week is based on holiday search interest, and made with TwoTone.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We all know that data visualization is a great tool to explore and make sense of numbers, and also to communicate those numbers to people. But there is also a long historical tradition in visualization that uses graphs, charts, and maps for persuasion. Think, for instance, of Florence Nightingale, who used data and charts to persuade the English authorities to improve the living conditions of soldiers during war. The persuasive tradition of visualization today continues thanks in part to the work of journalists and designers who work not for the news sides of their companies, but for their opinion sections. In this episode Alberto and Simon talked to two of them, Stuart Thompson from The New York Times, and Sergio Peçanha, from The Washington Post. How is their work similar to what traditional graphics departments in news organizations do? And how is it different? The music for this episode is Olympic athletes' weights and heights, from this dataset. The tool we use is TwoTone. Try it out!
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.
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.
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.
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.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
