Well, the Times is the Times. That’s the convenient tautology and rhetorical refrain that I’ve heard over the past decade from many talented and ambitious journalists as they explained why they chose, one after the other, to decamp from their respective alma maters—the Post, Politico, Bloomberg, Recode, and so on—to join the Gray Lady, often for a pay decrease, often to join up with their fiercest and most sharp-elbowed competitors, and yet always without a glimmer of a doubt. For generations of reporters, the Times has been the most revered and formidable news outlet in American journalism, offering a perch that conferred greater influence and authority on everyone deemed fit enough to appear in its pages. If the Times came calling, how on Earth could you say no?