[5] Schneider and Flaherty began publishing the 13-article series in November 1985 after 10 months of investigation into the United States's kidney transplant system and its abuse by wealthy foreign nationals, who bypassed the long wait lists.

[5][8] The following year, the Press's investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its pilot health screening practices, written by Schneider and Matthew Brelis, won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

[9] The investigative series, entitled "Danger in the Cockpit", revealed that Federal Air Surgeon Frank Austin Jr. inadequately screened 250 airline pilots for debilitating and potentially fatal medical conditions, including alcohol and drug issues, allowing them to continue operating aircraft, according to Schneider.

[15] Their findings, published in the five-part series "The Power to Harm", uncovered false confessions from child witnesses and other abuses by authorities in the wrongful arrests of 43 adults, some of whom would be convicted and sentenced to prison.

[15][16] The newspaper's investigation led to the establishment of Innocence Project Northwest, which overturned or reduced the case's 18 verdicts, freeing all of the defendants by the end of 2000;[16] it also convinced U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to say she might reconsider her decision that "there was no evidence of prosecutable federal civil rights violations.

[21][22][23] Schneider continued his reporting on asbestos after leaving the P-I for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2001, uncovering asbestos-related hazards from the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

[24] Schneider, along with P-I editor David McCumber, published a book of their findings entitled An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal.

[30] The chemical was found to have been causing lung-related diseases in workers at plants, including Bronchiolitis obliterans ("popcorn lung"), and, according to Schneider, put professional cooks at risk.

[30][31] Schneider returned to the P-I in 2007, where he stayed on as a health and food reporter with the "Secret Ingredients" column, continuing to cover the Libby asbestos case until the newspaper ceased publication in 2009.

[32] He then moved on to AOL News to cover the health risks of nanotechnology in consumer products, as well as seafood safety in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.