VANITY FAIR NOMINATE

Russell Baker

Hall of Fame

BECAUSE he is simply the most talented New York Times journalist of one and quite possibly two generations, and his column in the Times has been a national treasure for the last 35 years, BECAUSE long ago he looked at his own paper and said that it was time to change the definition of news, that what the Times and most other papers published each day should be called "olds instead of news—it's mostly things you already knew." BECAUSE he embodies the virtues of the generation touched by the Depression and World War II; indeed, his 1982 memoir about his childhood, Growing Up, remains a small classic of the genre, BECAUSE he is in person what he is in print, living by the values he espouses in his writing, BECAUSE he is a man of elegance and civility, both famously generous and scrupulously self-skeptical, BECAUSE no matter how successful he has become, he is still something of a puritan at heart. (He told me a few years ago, on the eve of purchasing a new car, "I refuse to pay more for a car than I did for my first house.") BECAUSE, although there is a certain melancholy streak to him, he remains a wonderful friend and dinner companion—usually, it should be noted, even better in the second part of the evening, after he's consumed several glasses of red wine, BECAUSE, in the end, even though he has always disliked the word "icon," he quietly and gracefully is one.

DAVID HALBERSTAM