In 2008, the Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, citing the work of Hull, reporter Dana Priest and photographer Michel du Cille for "exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials".
She wrote about low-wage workers in fast food and chicken processing plants, rural voters, immigration in the American South, LGBT teenagers coming out in the Bible Belt and Newark, and soldiers returning from the war in Iraq.
In late 2007, Hull and fellow Post reporter Dana Priest and photographer Michel du Cille went behind the gates at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington to investigate the living conditions of wounded soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This prompted President George W. Bush to appoint former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 presidential candidate Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) and former U.S Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to oversee the process of healthcare for wounded soldiers.
In 2008, she received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for Courage in Journalism for "her closely observed narratives of people living on the margins of society in America".