CNN's Harry Enten: Data for TV

The Data Journalism Podcast

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.