Louis Post-Dispatch. While much of his coverage as a reporter focused on the federal court system, Shinkle also wrote investigative stories on subjects ranging from improper disposal of radioactive waste to contamination spread by a lead mining company with operations in Missouri and Peru. In 2006, he left daily journalism in pursuit of a marketing career. After majoring in Russian language and literature at the University of Virginia, he worked for three years in the 1980s in Paris as a Russian and French translator for Voice of America.