Résumé · Matt Stiles

Profile

Journalist and hands-on technical leader who builds data tools, leads visual coverage and improves newsroom workflows. Built or led the expansion of CNN Visuals' automation to 100 data pipelines serving multiple desks. Experience spans reporting, Python development, geospatial analysis, interactive graphics and team management.

Experience

CNN

Senior data and graphics editor

2022–present · Los Angeles

Manage three direct reports, provide dotted-line guidance to another staff member and guide data-driven visual coverage across editorial, design, product and engineering from initial reporting through publication.
Expanded the team's automation from a handful of weather pipelines to 100 data pipelines, personally building or leading their development for business, climate, health and White House coverage.
Conceived and built Bot Index, an internal catalog of 100 pipelines, 120 live charts and 37 trackers. Standardized metadata for provenance, ownership and publishing destinations, with automated daily updates. Use it almost daily to help colleagues find existing visuals on deadline.
Modernized wildfire, flood, health and financial-market pipelines, replacing legacy workflows and disrupted sources. Secured gas-price and market-data access with external providers and CNN's product team.
Delivered breaking-news data and graphics, including flight-path analysis after the DCA crash, airport wait-time tracking and live winter-storm coverage.
Improved shared publishing tools and development documentation, trained colleagues on AI-assisted development and contributed to CNN's editorial AI working group.

Grid

Senior data visualization reporter

2021–2022 · Los Angeles

Led development of the startup newsroom's data strategy and visualization tools.

Los Angeles Times

Senior reporter

2016–2021 · Los Angeles and Seoul

Produced data visualizations, interactive graphics and news applications; led projects across departments and provided editorial and technical guidance.
Reported on Los Angeles County and worked as a foreign correspondent in Seoul, covering regional economic and security tensions.

The Wall Street Journal

National economics correspondent

2014–2015 · Washington, DC

Reported on national economic indicators and developed data visualizations to explain economic trends.

NPR

Data editor

2011–2014 · Washington, DC

Led teams creating interactive graphics and visual stories for digital platforms and member stations.

The Texas Tribune

Data applications editor

2009–2011 · Austin, Texas

Established the newsroom's data applications and interactive graphics strategy as its founding news applications editor, supervising production of visual content.

Selected open-source software

ezesri

Python package, command-line interface and web app for extracting data and metadata from Esri REST endpoints.

pyfr24

Python client and command-line tools for fetching, analyzing and plotting Flightradar24 data.

mound

Python package and command-line interface for retrieving, analyzing and visualizing MLB pitch-level data.

Technical skills

Python, pandas, GeoPandas, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, D3.js, Mapbox, GitHub Actions and ai2html. Data collection and API integration, geospatial analysis, automated publishing and interactive visualization.

Teaching

Adjunct instructor, University of Southern California

Recognition

Contributed to Los Angeles Times coverage of the fatal shooting on the Rust film set; staff finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting.

Education

University of Texas at Arlington
Bachelor of Communication, 2002