And yet the LA Times and the (London) Times and the Chicago Tribune did not, so however true this is, it took some extra magic sauce to "pull away from the pack". It wasn't just "being an important newspaper in 1995".
I think of it as a necessary, not sufficient condition. Same as with the football analogy. Everton and Spurs were in the premier league when it started, but they're not considered the cream of the crop.
Checking the other side of this, what media properties did not exist in 1995 but are a world class now? Not too obvious to me.