I'm a journalist who

I’m a senior data and graphics editor at CNN in Los Angeles. My work combines reporting, Python development, visual storytelling and newsroom automation. I help turn difficult data into clear stories.

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Selected work

Projects

Latest

Mound

pip install mound

Retrieves, analyzes and visualizes MLB pitch-level data from the command line or a few lines of Python. Start from a player's name — no MLB IDs to look up, no undocumented APIs to learn.

  • Data extraction
  • Analysis
  • Data viz
  • Baseball

Built with Python, CLI, matplotlib

Visit site GitHub Write-up

mound — roki sasaki
mound search "roki sasaki"
808963 Roki Sasaki Pitcher Los Angeles Dodgers
mound games "roki sasaki" --last 5
Roki Sasaki · 5 game(s) date opponent game_pk 2026-07-30 Seattle Mariners home 823921 2026-08-07 Arizona Diamondbacks away 825051 2026-08-13 Milwaukee Brewers home 823915 2026-08-19 Colorado Rockies away 824318 2026-08-26 Atlanta Braves away 824878
mound arsenal "roki sasaki" --game 823921
pitches usage% strike% whiff% chase% velo spin hb ivb splitter 37 41.1 62.2 47.6 48.1 91.1 944 7.4 1.8 four-seam fastball 33 36.7 69.7 23.1 26.7 99.1 2364 11.5 15.8 slider 20 22.2 75.0 30.0 37.5 86.8 2042 1.3 -1.9

Things at CNN

Matt Stiles's CNN profile page showing a list of recent visual stories
View project

CNN visuals and data stories

Data viz, Analysis, Journalism

Things other people use

The ezesri web app, with a field for pasting an Esri REST layer URL
View project

ezesri

Data extraction, Government data
Street View panorama of the Sixth Street Viaduct in Los Angeles
View project

streetview-dl

Data extraction
A pyfr24 plot tracing a single flight path
View project

pyfr24

Data extraction, Mapping, Aviation
Map tracing five United Airlines flight paths across the United States
View project

flight-tracer

Data extraction, Mapping, Aviation
County-level choropleth map of farmland as a share of county land area, densest across the Plains
View project

chorokit

Data viz, Mapping
Terminal output from a hangarbay registry lookup, listing the owner, model and airworthiness dates for an LAPD helicopter
View project

hangarbay

Data extraction, Analysis, Aviation
The Chartfeed gallery, with a search box and category filters above a dark grid of chart thumbnails
View project

chartfeed

Data viz
An LA Street Names Jupyter notebook, with its summary cell above Python import and pandas display settings
View project

notebooks

Reference, Analysis
Terminal output from a utilityman game, showing the play-by-play, a compact scoreboard and scoring plays as they happen
View project

utilityman

Data extraction, Baseball

Things that run themselves

The DodgersData.bot dashboard, showing a run differential chart and the season record
View project

DodgersData.bot

Data viz, Analysis, Baseball
A screenshot of the Trump Truth Social archive, showing a post and its engagement metrics.
View project

Trump Truth Social archive

Data extraction, Politics Now maintained by CNN
Dot density map of the United States showing thousands of retail locations
View project

Locations

Data extraction, Mapping, Retail
An LAPD helicopter over the Los Angeles skyline
View project

LAPD choppers

Mapping, Analysis, Los Angeles
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seated in a room with other North Korean leaders, according to KCNA.
View project

North Korea trackers

Data extraction, Foreign affairs
A screenshot of an object from the database's contestant table showing the first US winner, Richard Hatch.
View project

survivoR2py

Data extraction, Television

Things to click on

Their names fit register showing people whose names match their work
View project

Their names fit

Reference, Names
Onion History homepage with options to browse a random headline or a date
View project

Onion History

Reference, Data extraction, Satire
The Daily Viz archive showing an article about Donald Trump's tweets
View project

The Daily Viz

Data viz, Analysis, Journalism Retired
Map of central Los Angeles with purple dots marking jacaranda trees
View project

JacarandaMap.com

Mapping, Los Angeles
Calendar heat map of US birth frequency for every day of the year
View project

BirthdayRank.com

Data viz, Demographics
The What's My LA home page, with an address search field
View project

WhatsMyLA.com

Mapping, Los Angeles
About

Background

I'm Matt Stiles, a senior data and graphics editor at CNN, where I build software, manage technical staff and guide visual coverage.

I've expanded our team's automation from a few weather pipelines to 100 data pipelines, building or leading their development across business, climate, health and White House coverage. I also conceived and built Bot Index, an internal catalog that helps reporters and editors find existing live charts, maps and trackers on deadline.

Outside the newsroom, I publish open-source Python tools for acquiring and analyzing data, from government GIS records to flight paths and baseball pitches. I also teach at the University of Southern California.

Previously, I worked as a reporter at the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, served as data editor at NPR and was the founding news applications editor at The Texas Tribune. Read my résumé, stories and graphics.

Hello

Let's talk

Interested in data tools, visual storytelling or leading the teams behind them? Get in touch.

Matt Stiles's CNN profile page showing a list of recent visual stories

CNN visuals and data stories

A running collection of my data-driven stories, graphics and news applications at CNN.

  • Data viz
  • Analysis
  • Journalism

Visit site

Bot Index dashboard showing searchable cards for automated CNN data pipelines

Internal CNN tool

Bot Index

I conceived and built a searchable internal catalog connecting 100 newsroom data pipelines with 120 live charts and 37 trackers. Its inventory updates automatically each day.

  • Reference
  • Newsroom tools
CNN Visuals Cronbot repository README describing its automated data pipelines

Internal CNN system

CNN Visuals Cronbot

I own a collection of around 100 automated scripts that fetch and process data for CNN Visuals. They run on schedules in GitHub Actions, publish processed data to S3 and send status notifications to Slack.

  • Data extraction
  • Newsroom tools

Built with Python, GitHub Actions, AWS S3, Slack
The ezesri web app, with a field for pasting an Esri REST layer URL

ezesri

pip install ezesri

Pulls data and metadata out of Esri REST endpoints — the format most government GIS portals publish in — and writes it to GeoJSON, Shapefile, GeoPackage or GeoParquet.

  • Data extraction
  • Government data

Built with Python, CLI, GeoPandas

Visit site GitHub Write-up

Street View panorama of the Sixth Street Viaduct in Los Angeles

streetview-dl

pip install streetview-dl

Finds and downloads full-resolution Google Street View panoramas from a URL or a pair of coordinates, including historical captures of the same spot.

  • Data extraction

Built with Python, CLI

GitHub Write-up

A pyfr24 plot tracing a single flight path

pyfr24

pip install pyfr24

A Python client and command-line tool for the Flightradar24 API. Start with a flight number, end with a plotted track and a table you can analyze.

  • Data extraction
  • Mapping
  • Aviation

Built with Python, CLI, matplotlib

Visit site GitHub Write-up

Map tracing five United Airlines flight paths across the United States

flight-tracer

pip install flight-tracer

Fetches, stores and maps aircraft positions from ADS-B Exchange, built for following one tail number over weeks rather than watching a single flight.

  • Data extraction
  • Mapping
  • Aviation

Built with Python

GitHub

County-level choropleth map of farmland as a share of county land area, densest across the Plains

chorokit

pip install chorokit

Makes a clean choropleth in a few lines, with defaults for projection, layout and legend chosen so the map is publishable on the first render.

  • Data viz
  • Mapping

Built with Python, matplotlib, GeoPandas

GitHub

Terminal output from a hangarbay registry lookup, listing the owner, model and airworthiness dates for an LAPD helicopter

hangarbay

pip install hangarbay

A reproducible workflow for the FAA aircraft registry: download the raw files, normalize them into typed tables and find out who owns a tail number.

  • Data extraction
  • Analysis
  • Aviation

Built with Python, CLI

GitHub

The Chartfeed gallery, with a search box and category filters above a dark grid of chart thumbnails

chartfeed

A responsive gallery of your Datawrapper charts that rebuilds itself every day through GitHub Actions.

  • Data viz

Built with Svelte, GitHub Actions

GitHub

An LA Street Names Jupyter notebook, with its summary cell above Python import and pandas display settings

notebooks

Hundreds of worked Jupyter notebooks for analysis, charts and maps in Python. This is the reference I actually send people who ask how to start.

  • Reference
  • Analysis

Built with Python, Jupyter, pandas

GitHub

Terminal output from a utilityman game, showing the play-by-play, a compact scoreboard and scoring plays as they happen

utilityman

pip install utilityman

Follows a live MLB game in your terminal — play-by-play, a compact scoreboard and scoring plays as they happen — without opening a browser.

  • Data extraction
  • Baseball

Built with Python, CLI

GitHub

The DodgersData.bot dashboard, showing a run differential chart and the season record

DodgersData.bot

An automated pipeline that tracks Dodgers standings and game-by-game performance against every season back to 1958, and publishes the whole thing to a live dashboard each morning.

  • Data viz
  • Analysis
  • Baseball

Built with Python, pandas, D3

Visit site GitHub

A screenshot of the Trump Truth Social archive, showing a post and its engagement metrics.

Now maintained by CNN

Trump Truth Social archive

An auto-updating archive of President Trump's Truth Social posts, built when there was no reliable public record of them.

  • Data extraction
  • Politics

Built with Python

GitHub

Dot density map of the United States showing thousands of retail locations

Locations

Scrapers that gather store and restaurant locations for major US chains, so you can map a company's footprint without asking the company for its data.

  • Data extraction
  • Mapping
  • Retail

Built with Python, GeoPandas

GitHub

An LAPD helicopter over the Los Angeles skyline

LAPD choppers

Tracks LAPD helicopter flights and maps patrol intensity by division, reporting district and neighborhood, so you can see which parts of the city get flown over and how often.

  • Mapping
  • Analysis
  • Los Angeles

Built with Python, GeoPandas

GitHub

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is seated in a room with other North Korean leaders, according to KCNA.

North Korea trackers

Two pipelines running side by side: one archives hundreds of provocative actions, from missile launches to nuclear tests, and the other scrapes state media headlines as they publish.

  • Data extraction
  • Foreign affairs

Built with Python

GitHub

A screenshot of an object from the database's contestant table showing the first US winner, Richard Hatch.

survivoR2py

Converts an R-only archive of every Survivor castaway, challenge and vote into CSV and JSON on a daily schedule, so the show's full record is usable without knowing R.

  • Data extraction
  • Television

Built with Python, GitHub Actions

GitHub

Their names fit register showing people whose names match their work

Their names fit

A reported register of 695 aptronyms: people whose names suit their work unusually well, from sprinter Usain Bolt to golfer Tiger Woods and vodka maker Bert Beveridge.

  • Reference
  • Names

Visit site

Onion History homepage with options to browse a random headline or a date

Onion History

An automated archive of more than 35,000 headlines from The Onion, including "Supreme Court Votes 5-4 To Take Child Bride."

  • Reference
  • Data extraction
  • Satire

Visit site

The Daily Viz archive showing an article about Donald Trump's tweets

Retired

The Daily Viz

My retired digital sketchpad for creating and curating charts, maps and other data stories. Posting there helped me move from reporting into data visualization and visuals editing.

  • Data viz
  • Analysis
  • Journalism

Built with Jekyll

Visit site

Map of central Los Angeles with purple dots marking jacaranda trees

JacarandaMap.com

I've collected more than 1.6 million geocoded street trees across 40-plus Los Angeles-area municipalities from dozens of separate agencies. I put the iconic purple ones on this map.

  • Mapping
  • Los Angeles

Built with Mapbox GL, Python

Visit site GitHub

Calendar heat map of US birth frequency for every day of the year

BirthdayRank.com

An interactive look at which birthdays are common in the United States and which are rare, and why the pattern is stranger than you'd guess.

  • Data viz
  • Demographics

Built with Svelte, D3

Visit site GitHub

The What's My LA home page, with an address search field

WhatsMyLA.com

Type an address and see which Los Angeles you actually live in — neighborhood, council district, school zone and the rest of the overlapping boundaries.

  • Mapping
  • Los Angeles

Built with Svelte, Mapbox GL

Visit site GitHub