CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten’s mid-segment soda breaks have sparked questions over whether he’s doing covert advertisements for soft drink giants — but the network denied that his sips are sponsored content.
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“This is not an advertisement or sponsored segment,” a network spokesperson told HuffPost.
Suspicion bubbled up Saturday, when socialist influencer Hasan Piker speculated that Enten — a self-described “soda expert” who has even covered soft drinks for CNN — was doing an ad for Coca-Cola after he interrupted a polling segment to remark on his beverage.
“All this talk has gotten me a little bit thirsty here. So, this week I’m goin’ for a classic, a nice Coke Zero,” Enten said before taking a long sip.
Watch Enten’s soda guzzling session below:
“Ah, quenches the thirst, but more than that, it gives me the energy—” Enten said, pausing for another sip before continuing, “for the rest of our time together.”
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“Is he doing an ad? Was that just another fucking ad?” Piker asked while reacting to the segment on his Twitch stream.
Piker, who has also criticized Enten for doing on-air Kalshi “ads” since CNN announced a partnership with the prediction market, noticed that later in the segment, Enten named and sipped a Diet Coke.
See the data analyst’s second Coke moment below:
“What? What is he doing? OK, no, this is weird,” Piker pronounced.
Others expressed concerns about the data guru’s soda breaks, too, with one X user declaring that Enten’s segments should be viewed “entirely” as ads, considering CNN’s existing Kalshi partnership.
Enten, who once teased that a “PR firm” would have to be “helping” him if he ever wrote that he liked Diet Coke, has frequently interrupted his polling segments to sip soda and mention products by name.
Nevertheless, CNN offered a simpler solution for the caffeine breaks.
“Harry just likes soda,” the spokesperson said.
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