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Seminar examines Star Tribune’s reporting on sexual assault


September 27, 2019 - To tell the story of how law enforcement officials in Minnesota failed to fully investigate reported cases of sexual assault, journalists with the Star Tribune newspaper examined more than 1,400 cases across the state and interviewed dozens of rape survivors and experts.

The result of their work was a nine-part multimedia series, “Denied Justice,” published in the second half of 2018, that earned the Minneapolis daily newspaper a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

Three journalists who worked on the “Denied Justice” series will speak at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls during this semester’s Communication and Media Seminar at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, in the Kinnickinnic River Theater in the University Center.

Speakers are Jennifer Bjorhus, Brandon Stahl and MaryJo Webster. Bjorhus has been with the Star Tribune for more than 10 years, covering business, criminal justice and currently the environment. Stahl is an investigative reporter for KARE-TV, the NBC affiliate in the Twin Cities, and previously spent six years at the Star Tribune. MaryJo Webster, a 1994 alumna of UW-River Falls, has been data editor at the Star Tribune since 2015, where she works on a wide variety of stories that benefit from data analysis.

They will discuss how the “Denied Justice” series came to be, the methods used in reporting the stories, and the continuing effects of the coverage.

The event is free and open to the public.

For more information, call Associate Professor Andris Straumanis at 715-425-4645 or call the UWRF Communication and Media Studies Department at 715-425-3169.

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