The Friends of The Daily inducted its first members to The Daily Hall of Fame at its 50th annual Big Game banquet Nov. 21.

Thirty-two inductees were honored at the event, which took place over dinner at Stanford’s Faculty Club. Inductees were selected from Daily alumni in the graduating classes of 1980 and earlier. Criteria for selection included involvement in The Daily while at Stanford, contribution to The Daily as an alumnus and a distinguished career. Honorees stemmed from a variety of domains, including law, academia, military service and journalism, among other fields.

Jim Wascher ’75, a former editor in chief of The Daily and the vice president of the Board of Directors of the Friends of The Stanford Daily Foundation, was the first to propose the creation of a Hall of Fame to the Board. Wascher, Daily Publishing Corporation Board Chair In Ho Lee ’09 and The Daily’s current editor-in-chief, Greta Reich ’26, formed a committee to select the inaugural class of inductees. According to Wascher, the selection process for inductees took about six months.  

“The most memorable part of the banquet was helping to introduce the Hall of Fame inductees, many of whom I know,” Wascher wrote in an email to The Daily. “I remain amazed by the high level of achievement of the inductees.”

Hall of Fame inductee Philip Taubman ’70, a former Daily editor in chief, referred to his time working at The Daily as a “training ground” for his career in journalism. Taubman, a reporter and editor at The New York Times for over 30 years, said that covering political issues and student activism in the late 1960s — a “tumultuous period” on Stanford’s campus — motivated him to pursue journalism after graduating.

“When you’re covering events of the kind that I was covering at The Daily, you had a sense of being on the front lines of history,” Taubman said. “When I look back on my career, most of which was spent at The New York Times, it was definitely that sense of, as a reporter, having a ringside seat to history that makes journalism unlike almost any other profession.”

According to Taubman, though the landscape for journalism has changed with the advent of social media, The Daily still plays a “vital role as a source of information about what’s going on on campus.”

Felicity Barringer ’72, another a former editor in chief and an inductee at Friday’s ceremony, said her time working at The Daily allowed her to realize the importance of accurate reporting. Barringer, who is married to Taumban, echoed the sentiment that her experience on The Daily propelled her towards a career in journalism, first at The New York Times and later at The Washington Post.

“It was important to cover [events] accurately and tell people what was happening,” said Barringer of her time at The Daily. “And you realize, first, that you might have some ability to do that, and second, that it is really important that people get accurate information. And because of that, I got bitten by the journalism bug.”

The Daily’s financial officer and diversity, equity and inclusion chair Rani Chor ’26 said that attending the induction ceremony and banquet was an opportunity for her to appreciate the “rich base of professional journalists” that The Daily’s alumni network provides.

“Even though it’s an [independent] paper, [The Daily] is still so heavily intertwined into the lives of so many students — myself included — that it was really inspiring to see a room full of people who still cared enough to fly across the country to attend the event,” said Chor.

Barringer said that being inducted to the Hall of Fame was “incredibly gratifying.”

“[The Daily] was the institution that shaped my life,” said Barringer. “It was as if the people who put together the awards were saying: we’ve always been a family, and now we’re going to be a family in a more formal way.”

A full list of the honorees and their biographies can be found here.

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify In Ho Lee’s role as Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation Board Chair.