When BuzzFeed decided in 2012 to branch out from the cat videos, viral listicles and “OMG!” headlines that had put it on the map with under-30 readers for a bold new venture into serious journalism, its critics were skeptical. “WTF, indeed,” quipped Fast Company.

But less than a decade later, it had claimed its first Pulitzer Prize — for an investigative series that harnessed satellite imagery to demonstrate the extent of China’s secretive program for detaining the Uyghur people in the northwestern Xinjiang region — and secured a reputation as one of the brightest lights of digital media.