Schaefer is a longtime Detroit reporter and editor who has lived in Michigan longer than in his home state, which to the chagrin of some in this area, is the great state of Ohio. As a reporter, he's covered Detroit police, state and federal courts, public corruption and more. He and then-partner M.L. Elrick led investigations of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is now serving a federal prison sentence. That coverage earned the Free Press a Pulitzer Prize. As editor, Schaefer oversees reporters on the Free Press investigations team. For more than a dozen years, Schaefer also wrote a weekly column called "A few minutes with ... " Weirdly, he also was the Free Press' first video game critic.