Former New York Times reporter McCandlish Phillips died at 85 on Tuesday from complications of pneumonia, reports Margalit Fox, also of the Times. Even in a newsroom packed with luminaries, Fox writes that Phillips “stood out as a tenacious reporter and a lyrical stylist,” most known for his article exposing the Jewish background of a Ku Klux Klan leader who later committed suicide. Fox continues, “An evangelical Christian, he kept a Bible on his desk and led prayer meetings for like-minded colleagues (there were none when he joined the paper, he noted ruefully).” After 20 years, Phillips left the Times to pursue a life in religion.