PERSON: Jennifer Mayerle

Reporter

Jennifer Mayerle happily returned to Minnesota and WCCO, where she began her career as an intern. The Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist joined WCCO as a reporter in May 2014.

Jennifer likes to tell stories that positively impact the community, to report on ordinary people who act in extraordinary ways, and to investigate problematic situations that can be corrected by an informed public.

Prior to WCCO she worked at CBS46 in Atlanta, where she was recognized for excellence in reporting and for community involvement. Jennifer received an Emmy for her in-depth look at the long-lasting impact of concussions and repeated hits to the head in athletics from the youth to the pro level. Her reports helped prompt Georgia legislators to pass The Return to Play Act, a law designed to protect young athletes.

In 2011, she won an Emmy, a Murrow, and a Georgia Associated Press award for her report on Ann Bartlett, a woman who died in a house fire due, Jennifer discovered, to the failure of firefighters to respond adequately to Bartlett’s 911 call.

One of Jennifer’s reports saved lives. She broke an investigation on counterfeit smoke detectors purchased by the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department and distributed to low-income residents. The highly-publicized series of reports prompted an FBI investigation of the distributor and forced the department to recall and begin to replace more than 18,000 faulty detectors. One of the replacement detectors alerted and saved a family of six from a fire that destroyed their home.

Jennifer received the Apex Society’s 2008 “Power 30 under 30” award, which honors 30 professionals in Atlanta under age 30 for excellence in their professional and community endeavors. She enjoyed volunteering, emceeing events and serving on boards of directors, including the Atlanta Press Club. She was moved by her journey with Georgia war veterans on their Honor Flight to visit the war memorials in Washington, D.C. and to observe the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery. She also traveled to the District of Columbia to cover the 50th anniversary of The March on Washington.

During her time in Atlanta, you might have caught one of her occasional reports on The Insider and CNN (including one, reporting from Atlanta in January, on the onset of a spell of bitterly cold weather in Minnesota – could that be the story that led her back home?). She also contributed profiles of prominent individuals to The Atlantan monthly magazine.

Prior to Atlanta, Jennifer worked as a weekend anchor/reporter for WKRG in Mobile, AL. There she gained international exposure for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She won her first Emmy and Murrow for her interview with Hardy Jackson in Biloxi, Mississippi just hours after his wife was swept from his grasp by the flood waters. It was one of the first stories of human suffering to emerge from Katrina’s wreckage. Jennifer and Hardy became friends, and she maintained her connection to Hardy until his death in 2013. She still keeps in touch with his family.

Jennifer began her career at KWES in Midland, TX, as a weekend anchor/reporter, a smaller market where she learned the value of self-sufficiency and grew to appreciate the beauty of rolling tumbleweeds.

She was born and raised in Edina and graduated from the University of San Diego.