Jeff Meitrodt

Jeffrey Meitrodt supervises the Star Tribune’s investigative reporters, including the Whistleblower team. Before joining the newspaper in 2009, he covered state government for the Chicago Tribune, where he was the lead reporter on a story showing that most individuals who donated $25,000 to Gov. Rod Blagojevich got something back, ranging from state jobs and contracts to regulatory favors. He spent much of his career uncovering corruption and neglect as the award-winning Special Projects Editor for The Times Picayune in New Orleans. He led investigative projects there for a decade and covered the problems of rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The newspaper’s team coverage won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2006. In his role, Meitrodt edited or wrote investigative projects that exposed widespread nepotism among Louisiana’s freewheeling fraternity of river pilots; that revealed massive abuses in government programs for women and minority businesses; and that showed how state regulators failed to punish nursing homes for mistakes that harmed hundreds of patients, including nine who died after flagrant errors. His work prompted federal investigations, imposed sanctions on judges, and forced state agencies to overhaul their policies. In 2002, he won a prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. A native of Eau Claire, Wisc., Meitrodt previously worked for New Orleans CityBusiness, the Kingston (N.Y.) Daily Freeman, the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot-Ledger and the Twin Cities Reader in Minneapolis. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota.