The Data Journalism Podcast

Three veterans of the data journalism world got together in 2021 and started talking shop, and the result is one of the most specialized and rewarding journalism podcasts out there. Alberto Cairo is a visualization professor at the University of Miami and author of multiple books on information graphics. Simon Rogers built Google's data journalism operation and previously ran the Guardian's groundbreaking Datablog. Scott Klein leads interactive news at the Marshall Project, one of the best criminal justice newsrooms in the country. Together they interview the practitioners who are actually building the charts, maps, databases, and interactive tools that power modern investigative reporting. Recent guests have included data journalists from the Washington Post, the Minnesota Star Tribune, and Singapore's Straits Times, covering everything from election result visualization to immigration data analysis and data literacy education. The monthly episodes run about an hour and get genuinely technical without becoming impenetrable. You will hear about specific tools, methodology choices, and the editorial decisions behind how data gets presented to readers. With 51 episodes and a 4.8-star rating, the audience is small but highly engaged. This is a podcast made by and for people who believe that numbers, when handled responsibly, tell some of the most important stories in journalism. The production is straightforward, three smart people on a call talking about work they care deeply about. No fancy sound design, no dramatic scoring. Just substance. If you work with data in any newsroom capacity, or if you want to understand how the charts and graphics in your favorite publications actually get made, this is the show.