[1] Becker worked for the St. Petersburg Times, the Concord Monitor and the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour before starting at the Washington Post in 2000 where she covered local and state politics before joining the investigative projects team.

[2][3] Becker and Washington Post colleague Barton Gellman won the 2008 Pulitzer prize in national reporting for a series of articles "documenting the power wielded in secrecy by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"[4] She also shared the 2017 Pulitzer prize in international reporting awarded to the New York Times staff for a series or articles examining Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to "project power abroad and undermine the 2016 American presidential election," and the 2018 Pulitzer prize in national reporting awarded to the staffs of the New York Times and the Washington Post for stories about Russia's interference in the US elections.

"[13] But activists who opposed bringing the Prop 8 case, worrying that there weren’t enough votes on the Supreme Court, argued the book gave short shift to the contribution of others.

[15] For the academic year of 2012-2013, Becker was appointed as a visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, teaching investigative reporting.