Daniel Wheaton is the senior data journalist for the Midwest Newsroom, a collaboration of public radio stations in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. In this role, he collaborates with station reporters across the region on data-driven reporting projects, obtaining public records and producing data visualizations. The core stations involved in this collaboration are KCUR 98.3, St. Louis Public Radio, Iowa Public Radio and Nebraska Public Media News. His position is based at Nebraska Public Media, where he has worked since 2021. The Midwest Newsroom has received awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, PMJA, RTDNA and several statewide journalism associations in the 4-state region. 

In 2023-24 Wheaton helped with the creation of The Nebraska News Map, a research project led by professor Jessica Walsh to better understand the local news landscape across the state. Wheaton handled the geospatial and data portions of the project. In addition to teaching data journalism and communication design courses at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, Wheaton also assists the depth reporting course by providing editing support, help with records requests and graphics editing. He also teaches advanced GIS courses for SGIS.

Before joining Nebraska Public Media, Daniel worked as a graphics and data reporter at The San Diego Union-Tribune from 2016 to 2021. There, he focused on breaking news graphics and data visualization and hosted the daily news podcast "San Diego News Fix.” 

Wheaton is also an assistant coach for University Speech and Debate. He primarily coaches limited preparation and pubic address events. He competed on the team from 2011-2015 and is a national finalist in persuasive speaking.