In 1968, Desantis began working at the Schenectady Gazette. After two years at that paper, traveled to Boston to take summer classes at Harvard in June 1970. It was that year that she began working at The Boston Globe, where she began as a staff member. It was in that position that she won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting with Gerard O'Neill, Timothy Leland, and Stephen A. Kurkjian, for exposing corruption in Somerville, Massachusetts, as a member of the Spotlight team. The investigation led to 119 Somerville officials being indicted. That year Desantis became a publicity manager at Cahners Publications in Boston and worked there for a year. In 1973, she left to become a freelance writer, working in that capacity until 1985, when she was made associate director at the Washington, D.C. Communications Consortium. In 1991, Desantis was public relations director of The Boston Foundation.[2][3][5]
Previously the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, No Edition Time from 1953–1963 and the Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting from 1964–1984