Daniel J. Whitman first set foot in a newsroom as a UCLA junior, tagging along with a friend to interview the campus newspaper's editor for a sociology project. He never left. That chance encounter led to a two-year stint at the Daily Bruin, where he discovered that explaining how systems work—and fail—was exactly the kind of puzzle his mind craved.

Daniel J. Whitman first set foot in a newsroom as a UCLA junior, tagging along with a friend to interview the campus newspaper’s editor for a sociology project. He never left. That chance encounter led to a two-year stint at the Daily Bruin, where he discovered that explaining how systems work—and fail—was exactly the kind of puzzle his mind craved.

Career Path

After graduating in 2010, Daniel spent four years at the Riverside Press-Enterprise covering municipal government before joining KPCC’s digital team as an enterprise reporter. His 2018 investigation into LA Metro’s delayed maintenance schedules, which revealed a pattern of deferred safety inspections on aging rail cars, earned him a California News Publishers Association award and prompted a system-wide audit.

Current Coverage

At News of Los Angeles, Daniel covers transportation, infrastructure, and urban development—the physical systems that shape how Angelenos move, commute, and live. He’s particularly focused on the intersection of housing policy and transit planning, tracking how decisions made in Sacramento and City Hall ripple through neighborhoods from Boyle Heights to Canoga Park.
Daniel grew up in Long Beach and still remembers the Blue Line opening in 1990—his grandmother took him to ride it on launch day. That memory, of a city trying to reimagine itself, informs how he approaches every story about LA’s built environment. When he’s not chasing records requests, he referees youth soccer games in Silver Lake, where he lives with his wife and their perpetually unfinished backyard garden.

Stay Connected:
[email protected]