After college, Coll wrote general-interest articles for California magazine. In 1985, he started working for The Washington Post as a general assignment feature writer for the paper's Style section. Two years later, he was promoted to serve as the financial correspondent for the newspaper, based in New York City. He and David A. Vise collaborated on a series of reports scrutinizing the Securities and Exchange Commission for which they received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting and the Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers. In 1989, he moved to New Delhi, when he was appointed as the Post'sSouth Asia bureau chief. He served as a foreign correspondent through 1995. Coll began working for the newspaper's Sunday magazine insert in 1995, serving as publisher of the magazine from 1996 to 1998. He was promoted to managing editor of the newspaper in 1998 and served in that capacity through 2004. He has also served as an associate editor for the newspaper from late 2004 to August 2005. In September 2005, Coll joined the writing staff of The New Yorker. Based in Washington, D.C., he reported on foreign intelligence and national security.
On July 23, 2007, Coll was named as the next director of the New America Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. He has also contributed to the New York Review of Books, particularly about the war in Afghanistan. On June 25, 2012, Coll announced his resignation as President of the New America Foundation to pen a follow up to Ghost Wars. On October 23, 2012, Coll was elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board, administered by Columbia University.
On March 18, 2013, Coll was announced to succeed Nick Lemann as the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, effective July 1, 2013.
Honors and awards
1990: Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting
1991: Livingston Award for International Reporting for "Crisis and Change in South Asia", The Washington Post
2000: Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for "Peace Without Justice: A Journey to the Wounded Heart of Africa", The Washington Post
2000: Ed Cunningham Award for "Peace Without Justice: A Journey to the Wounded Heart of Africa", The Washington Post
2004: Lionel Gelber Prize for Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
2005: Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
2005: Arthur Ross Book Award for Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
