In 1978, Barton Gellman, Editor-in-chief of George Washington High School’s newspaper, gave the go ahead to run an article on teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy was a problem at the Philadelphia high school, but the words “abortion” and “contraception” in the article pushed the limits on an already contentious subject.

The schools’ principal confiscated the newspapers and fired Gellman from his position as Editor. The poor judgment of school authorities turned out to be a catalyst for Gellman’s burgeoning career in journalism, and ultimately his Pulitzer Prize. Gellman was forced to question what he was committed to, and decided to sue. ACLU and Temple Law School took the case pro bono, and Gellman took the principal to federal court.

He won the settlement—the courts ruled that the newspaper staff had a right to distribute the paper containing the offending article—but by then Gellman had graduated, and was a reporter for the Daily Princetonian at Princeton University.

Although he was stimulated and filled with ambition by a summer journalism program at Columbia, he chose to study politics and international affairs. “You learn journalism by doing it,” says Gellman, “It helps to be a journalist if you know something about something, like science, medicine, or law.”

“Write as much as you can; learn research skills…develop knowledge and intellectual self confidence,” Gellman advises aspiring journalists. “To learn what powerful people and institutions don’t want you to know,” he adds, “you need to have self confidence to unpack the lies and say what is the truth….”

His Masters degree in politics at Oxford University prepared him to be a diplomatic correspondent at the Washington Post, following a foray into presidential campaigning. During his first ten years at the Post, Gellman worked as the Jerusalem Bureau Chief and as a Washington D.C. superior court reporter, among other jobs. He was stationed in Iraq for two months, doing investigative stories on weapons of mass destruction.

Journalism is a passion for Gellman. “I get to be curious for a living,” he says, “You have an excuse to go anywhere, and ask anyone to show you their world.” Gellman has been in a submarine under an arctic icecap, and he has catapulted from a plane onto an air craft carrier. Gellman talks to everyone. Even within an organization, he explains, there are specializations and hierarchies—people in a single organization only know what happens in their sector, and aren’t connected to people working in other areas.

For the past ten years, he has been a special projects reporter, taking several months to write lengthy articles, an atypical schedule for a newspaper reporter. Gellman, along with fellow Washington Post reporter Jo Becker, took a year to write a 20,000 word series of articles about Dick Cheney’s vice presidency, which won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting this year.

Although he was writing an in-depth series on Cheney, Gellman procured all of his information indirectly. His job, he explains, is “accountability journalism—finding out what people with power are doing with it that they don’t want you to know,” and holding them accountable. People knew that Cheney was a dangerously powerful Vice President, but it was up to Gellman to prove it with hard facts.

The information he needs to obtain would not be freely disclosed in a press conference or staged event. Gellman has to navigate the roundabout route. He starts by making a long list of people who know a little piece of the story, and then determines who has the least motive to hide something. “For example,” Gellman explains, “someone who is in the State Department might not care if something is politically sensitive from the point of view of the White House.”

In his experience, people are more willing to divulge information if Gellman shows them that he already has some knowledge. He uses a practiced metaphor: in the same way that you need money to borrow money, you need information to get information. In one situation, Gellman called the White House Chief of Staff seven times, but he refused to talk. Gellman then wrote him an email explaining why he should talk. Only when Gellman revealed that he was knowledgeable about the situation did the Chief of Staff agree to an interview, providing useful information.

The four-article series on Cheney was so popular—it places 3rd for “most hits” on the Washington Post website—that Gellman wrote a book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, exploring similar questions but in a broader scope, with more room for narrative. His target audience? “I don’t know,” Gellman said, and then paused—“Political junkies.” But his book apparently has a wider appeal; it debuted at #4 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list early in October.