As your Guardian link says, the National Enquirer did not actually win a Pulitzer. If you think of the prize as being given for results rather than the process

As your Guardian link says, the National Enquirer did not actually win a Pulitzer. If you think of the prize as being given for results rather than the process, it’s not that wild: they broke a major story that affected a presidential election. People occasionally find something valuable while digging through the trash, which seems like a pretty apt analogy. Likewise, the Nobel prize for grapheme was effectively for scribbling with a pencil on Scotch Tape and repeatedly pulling it apart. I used to do this in elementary school, but does it cheapen the Nobel Prize? I’d argue no, the prize is——-in part——-for realizing what you’ve got.