Yes, I think so.

The Washington Post ran a story titled "How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty" http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/ on September 3, 2014, in response to the complaints of Ferguson demonstrators.

While the St. Louis Dispatch has indeed written stories about fines, fees, and warrants, as you linked above, none of the stories you linked were published before the Washington Post story.

So I ran a search ("court fees" between January 1, 2014 and September 2, 2014) on the St Louis Dispatch website, and came up with this article, which ran on August 29, 2014: Attorney group says municipal courts in St. Louis area violate rights of the poor http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/attorney-group-says-municipal-courts-in-st-louis-area-violate/article_4acb52c2-75e5-511a-8a19-fa0344302288.html which also seems to be in response to the Ferguson demonstrations -- as opposed to an investigative reporter following leads on his or her own initiative. But this is a legitimate story that explains basically what the Washington Post did in more detail. In this case then, maybe reporting must come from outside the local area for people to actually believe it. Or perhaps outsiders need to see the way the city functions, which is why a story has significant more reach when published in the Washington Post.

This story was included in the search too, running on May 18, 2014, but never mentions jail as a very real consequence of not being able to pay a ticket: How to bargain a speeding ticket away around St. Louis http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/jim-gallagher/how-to-bargain-a-speeding-ticket-away-around-st-louis/article_de51462e-aa0a-529c-9ab6-36880ec273d1.html

And this one, that ran February 19, 2014: For $35, some people can clear arrest warrant, get new St. Louis court date http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/for-some-people-can-clear-arrest-warrant-get-new-st/article_e03d6b10-a9d4-511d-a7d6-d2216a853370.html but it only refers to warrants issued within St. Louis municipality and is more of an announcement than an investigation of the city-wide practice of bilking the poor.

208 articles came up under my search parameters. To be thorough, I should go back five years or so, but I don't have time right now to read through all the headlines and such.

(Links you included to the St. Louis Dispatch are behind a paywall, so I cannot read the text of some of their stories, just the headline and dateline.)

Thank you for providing the link to the Department of Justice report on the Ferguson Police Department. I am using this link, in case anyone here ha a similar issue and cannot read text on the St Louis Dispatch website. khttps://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1681155/ferguson-police-department-report.pdf