Colacioppo is a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School (Denver) and Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Before joining "The Post", she was an editor at "The Des Moines Register". She worked for "The Post" for 17 years—city editor, investigations editor and news editor—before her elevation to the top editorship. She had a leading role in the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting coverage; for that story, "The Post" won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.