Ok so I found this really well documented node_module called js-xlsx
Question: How can I parse an xlsx to output json?
Here is what the excel sheet looks like:

In the end the json should look like this:
[
   {
   "id": 1,
   "Headline": "Team: Sally Pearson",
   "Location": "Austrailia",
   "BodyText": "...",
   "Media: "..."
   },
   {
   "id": 2,
   "Headline": "Team: Rebeca Andrade",
   "Location": "Brazil",
   "BodyText": "...",
   "Media: "..."
   }
]
index.js:
if(typeof require !== 'undefined') {
    console.log('hey');
    XLSX = require('xlsx');
}
var workbook = XLSX.readFile('./assets/visa.xlsx');
var sheet_name_list = workbook.SheetNames;
sheet_name_list.forEach(function(y) { /* iterate through sheets */
  var worksheet = workbook.Sheets[y];
  for (z in worksheet) {
    /* all keys that do not begin with "!" correspond to cell addresses */
    if(z[0] === '!') continue;
    // console.log(y + "!" + z + "=" + JSON.stringify(worksheet[z].v));
  }
});
XLSX.writeFile(workbook, 'out.xlsx');