There are many yardsticks by which you can measure elite status, other than salary. I respect Dennis Ritchie, but not for his salary.

If you measure status by the yardstick "Number of people in the white house you're on a first name basis with" then I am reasonably confident that NYT chief White House correspondent Peter Baker scores higher than the president of Stanford University.

None of this detracts from what Theo Baker has achieved, of course.

Interesting. So, by that yardstick, a cook in the Whitehouse basement is legacy elite. So is my 20 year old niece. Sorry, but a more successful than average journalist is not part of the "legacy elite", whatever the fuck that means anyway.

The term 'legacy elite' is indeed ambiguous, so let me state things in a different way.

Imagine you're the President of Stanford, and some kid on the student newspaper is bothering you about some decade-old nonsense. You can barely even remember fudging the numbers and besides, everyone was doing it. Student newspapers have been railing against the university since time immemorial, but this guy seems determined to harass you personally. It bothers you and you want it to stop.

You could probably make it stop; almost everyone is guilty of something, and society has seen fit to give you your own police force. And even if you can't find any evidence of pot or drinking or piracy, why shouldn't rules about harassment, bullying and creating a hostile workplace be on your side? Even if that wouldn't hold up in court, probably someone can convince the kid that 'voluntarily' stopping would be in everyone's best interests.

Then you find out the kid's parents both write for major national periodicals. And not occasional contract work or writing the sunday style magazine, they're serious journalists.

You realise this kid has probably already received advice on the lines between journalism and harassment. Probably very well informed advice. And even if his parents don't personally write about rising censorship on college campuses, they undoubtedly know people who do.

You're going to have to do this one by the book.

Exactly, don't know why they are trying to frame the kid as part of some legacy elite. We should judge Theo for his actions (commendable), not who his parents are.

Theo's achievements wouldn't be possible without his parent's legacy to protect him. The average student journalist absolutely could not do the same thing Theo did here.

> two moderately paid journalists

"Peter Eleftherios Baker (born July 2, 1967) is an American journalist and author. He is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times and a political analyst for MSNBC, and was previously a reporter for The Washington Post for 20 years."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Baker_(journalist)

I don't know what he's paid, but I doubt it's anywhere near the median for journalists, for US workers, or for the NYTimes.