Cart was born in Louisiana, USA. She began showing an interest in writing during her high school years when she was editor of the school newspaper. At the same time, she was writing news briefs as an unpaid student for her local paper. She moved to Los Angeles with her Australian journalist husband.
Journalistic ventures
Following her time in high school as a mainly unpaid reporter, Cart took on the role of copy kid at a newspaper and thereafter joined United Press International in Phoenix, Arizona as a reporter. In 1982, she became a reporter for the Metro Section at the Los Angeles Times, later becoming national correspondent there. Other roles she has held there included Denver bureau chief and sports writer. Throughout her career at the LA Times, Cart has focused on investigations and special projects. She also became known as one of the first women to go into professional sports’ locker rooms. In that field, she covered the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, Winter Olympic Games, Summer Olympic Games, Wimbledon, boxing in China, soccer in Argentina and apartheid athletes in South Africa In 2003, Cart joined the environmental staff, focusing on public lands and endangered species. Issues Cart has covered in her LA Times reporting include Utahpolygamy, the Columbine High School massacre, post-911 and the recovery of Hurricane Katrina. In 2015 Cart joined CALmatters, a journalism organization covering California's state capitol. She covers the environment beat.
Awards
In 1983, Cart was in third place for Investigative Reporting, earning the Associated Press Sports Editors award. In 1984, she was in first place for the Best Sports Story and Best News Story from the UPI-California Nevada Association. Three years later, the Greater Los Angeles Press Club awarded her first place for the Best Sports Story. In 1990, she received an honorable mention for Enterprise Reporting and two years later fifth place for Enterprise Reporting. In 1993, she received the Women's Sports Foundation Award. In 1995, Cart was in second place for Enterprise Reporting. In 2005, she took second place in the Kevin Carmody Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting awarded by the Society of Environmental Journalists and a year later an honorable mention from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism. In 2009, Cart and her colleague Bettina Boxall won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. This was for the five-part series they created which investigated the increasing hazard of western American wildfires, the enduring deployment of federal firefighting jobs, the escalation of the "fire-industrial complex" and the political influence and pressure put on fire commanders to use burdensomely pricey, and ultimately ineffective, aircraft to combat fires. In 2018, Cart was selected as a recipient of the SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in recognition of her environmental coverage. Cart also created the winning series on the "cost and effectiveness of attempts to combat the growing menace of wildfires across the western United States".
