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Matt Stiles

Matt Stiles’s staff photo

Matt Stiles covered government and politics for the Tribune, with a focus on data journalism, from 2009 to 2011. He oversaw and developed the Tribune’s library of web applications and interactive graphics. Previously, he was a government reporter at the Houston Chronicle. While there, he won the newspaper’s Jesse Award for service journalism and beat reporting and was its reporter of the year in 2007. Before joining the Chronicle, Stiles worked as a reporter for nearly four years at The Dallas Morning News.

Past Contributions

  • Interactive: Annotated Court Documents

    By Matt Stiles

    A federal appeals case involving race-based admissions at University of Texas at Austin threatens to reinvigorate an ideological skirmish of the late 1990s. Fisher v. Texas — the first lawsuit of its kind brought against a university since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a pair of landmark decisions in 2003 — has observers across the country wondering if the state's troubled history with race-based admissions have made it the ideal incubator for the next round of affirmative action battles. Full Story 

  • Mark Jones: The TT Interview

    By Matt Stiles

    The chairman of the political science department at Rice University recently ranked Texas House members' partisanship based on their 2009 legislative votes. Our interactive chart highlights what he describes as Texas' increasingly polarized political environment. Full Story 

    Mark P. Jones, political science chair at Rice University.
    Credit: Mark P. Jones

  • Data App: Personal Finance

    By Matt Stiles

    Politicians, candidates and other state officers are required to disclose their personal finances, to discourage conflicts of interest and, according to the law, "strengthen the faith and confidence of the people of this state in state government." Yet getting these documents isn’t easy, so we've put all 3,070 available online. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Justin Dehn/Todd Wiseman

  • Rice Poli Sci Chair Mark Jones on House Partisanship

    By Matt Stiles

    Mark P. Jones, political science chairman at Rice University, recently ranked Texas House members' partisanship based on their 2009 legislative votes. The study, which we've used to create an interactive chart, shows Texas' increasingly polarized political environment, Jones says in an interview. Full Story 

    Mark P. Jones, political science chair at Rice University.
    Credit: Mark P. Jones

  • Last Call

    By Ross Ramsey and Matt Stiles

    Tonight is the legally imposed reporting deadline for the next round of campaign finance reports, which is big deal for two reasons: Candidates want to show momentum and credibility at mid-year, and they love having an excuse to ask supporters to pony up before the clock strikes midnight. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Full Story 

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  • Red-Light Camera Cash

    By Matt Stiles

    Revenue from Texas red-light cameras soared in 2009, with cities collecting more than $62 million from motorists, newly released state records show. We've taken that revenue data to create an interactive visualization that shows how the traffic camera revenue, expenses and profits vary from city to city, along with the proportion of the money that goes to the state. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Matt Stiles

  • Data App: Texas Population Estimates

    By Matt Stiles

    Texas now has about 24.8 million residents, an increase of 3.9 million, or almost 20 percent, since 2000, and trails only California in the proportion of its residents who identify themselves as Hispanic. We're also the third-youngest state, with a median age of 33; only Utah and Alabama have younger populations. These and other fun facts can be discovered in a new database application that helps explain and visualize how the makeup of Texas counties has changed since the last U.S. Census. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmrich, Jacob Villanueva