> to compete in the Pulitzers' investigative reporting category, where winners tend to be multi-part series that involve resource-intensive data collection.

I believe the whole point is that there was no data collection or investigation of any sort, just a bunch of (still) unconfirmed personal anecdotes.

Now, if she had somehow managed to legally obtain records of leaked emails and documents from different, corroborated sources, and managed to stitch together and paint a coherent narrative, then it wouldn't matter what training she received, she would be an investigative journalist and would and should be considered for the pulitzer, even though she wasn't writing for any traditional media source.

As it stands, she's put together a compelling piece of writing about personal experience that tends to be supported by other evidence that's only now coming forward, not collected by her and released by her.

Any sort of investigative journalism should pay attention to both investigation and jornalism (of any sort and format), or else it should not be considered for that category, or else there should be another category created for "personal experience shared".