Finalist: Brandon Stahl, Jennifer Bjorhus, MaryJo Webster and Renée Jones Schneider of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn.

Brandon Stahl has been a journalist for six years at the Star Tribune, where he currently covers federal courts and agencies. His stories at the Star Tribune on nursing care failures, child protection and law enforcement handling of sex crimes have resulted in numerous calls for reform and changes in state laws. He previously worked as the investigations editor at the Duluth News Tribune, where his stories on physician malpractice and medical errors, drug abuse, tax-dollar waste and sex offenders won national and state awards, including from Scripps Howard (Community Journalism), the Association of Health Care Journalists (Investigative) and the Society of Professional Journalists (Investigative). In 2012, Stahl was named Journalist of the Year by the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists. Stahl graduated from Drake University in Iowa in 1998. He and his wife live in St. Louis Park, Minn., with their 13-year-old daughter.

Jennifer Bjorhus is a reporter for the Star Tribune. During her 10 years with the company, she has covered business and criminal justice. Her projects on police use of force and on discipline by the state’s police licensing board won national awards including the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting and a National Headliner Award for investigative reporting. Jennifer was named Journalist of the Year in 2018 by the Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She started in journalism as a general assignment reporter at The Seattle Times and covered a range of business beats at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Oregonian and the San Jose Mercury News. A native of Minnesota, she graduated from Carleton College in 1986 and the University of California-Berkeley in 1994 with master’s degrees in journalism and Asian studies. She lives in St. Paul with her husband, Ranjit. They have two sons.

MaryJo Webster has been data editor at the Star Tribune since 2015. She started her career as a reporter at small daily papers in Minnesota and Wisconsin before attending the University of Missouri-Columbia to specialize in investigative reporting and data journalism. While earning her master's degree, she also worked for Investigative Reporters and Editors, where she polished her data skills and taught others. After graduating in 2001, MaryJo became the first data editor at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., where she oversaw an investigation of soft money flowing from state political party committees to federal committees. She spent several years as sports data editor for USA Today, then moved home to Minnesota and spent nine years as data editor for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, followed by a short stint as a data reporter with Digital First Media. MaryJo, who also has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, teaches at the University of Minnesota. She lives in a Minneapolis suburb with her husband and two children.

Renée Jones Schneider is a multimedia journalist at the Star Tribune. She was born in Dublin, Ireland, and as a child moved to Minnesota with her parents. She attended St. Olaf College, majoring in studio art. Halfway through that her studies, she discovered photography during two overnights on a documentary project at St. Paul’s famous Mickey’s Diner. She later worked for the Owatonna People’s Press and the Faribault Daily News. For the past 15 years at the Star Tribune, Jones Schneider has covered some of its biggest assignments. Her video and photography work on the 2014 project “Bees on the Brink” won several awards, including best explanatory reporting by a large news organization in the Online Journalism Awards and best documentary in the National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism Awards. She won two regional Emmy awards for videos on radicalization prevention and farming accidents, and she was named Journalist of the Year by the Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2016. She won a World Press Photo award in 2005. She lives in Savage, Minn., with her husband, Todd, and four children.