At the Times, Van Natta was on a six-reporter team, led by Jeff Gerth, that won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series of stories about American corporations that sold satellite technology with military value to China.
Prior to joining the Times in July 1995, Van Natta worked for eight years at The Miami Herald, where he was a member of a team of reporters awarded the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of Hurricane Andrew in August 1992.
While at The Herald, he won numerous national, regional and state awards, including the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel and the Investigative Reporters & Editors Gold Medal for an eight-part series called "Crime and No Punishment," which revealed Miami had the highest rate of crime but the lowest rate of punishment in America.
In April 2003, Van Natta published his first book, First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers and Cheaters from Taft to Bush (Public Affairs, ISBN 1-58648-008-1).
In a blog post following publication of the News of the World story, media commentator Michael Wolff characterised Van Natta as a Times's "enforcer" and "insider, loyalist and gun".
In his column, Brisbane broadly supported the Times' reporting but conceded that it relied heavily on anonymous sources and that presentation of the story and gratuitous references to Murdoch could leave room for suspicions of a "hidden agenda".
Don Van Natta lives in Coral Gables, Florida with his wife, Lizette Alvarez, a New York Times correspondent, and their two daughters.