Maria Retter joined paper trail media as investigative reporter in November 2023. She studied International Economics as well as Political Science in Innsbruck and Paris and completed various internships during her studies, including in the business department of DIE ZEIT in Hamburg and at ORF Tirol. After completing her studies, she worked for Swarovski for almost two years, in the field of competitive intelligence. After this, she completed the Austrian Media Academy (ÖMA) and trained as a speaker, while starting work as editor at the Innsbruck office of Austria Presse Agentur (APA). In 2021, together with other media professionals from all over Austria, she founded “Inspektorin Grün”, a research collective aiming at the empowerment of consumers in the field of greenwashing and sustainability. In January 2023, she moved to the STANDARD as Tyrol correspondent. In this role she got on bord the international investigative project #RotenbergFiles that reveiled how the Rotenberg brothers managed to hide their assets from the authorities.