The Media Elite is a sociological survey that explores the connection between the charter of today's journalists and the news that appears in the major media: The New York Times, Washington Post The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, and NBC. This group of newspapers, news magazines, and television networks together make up the national media, which determine to a large degree how the news is presented.

        A short synopsis of the Media Elite appears in the Introduction to this month's Book World. Reprinted here is the book's second chapter, "Group Portrait" It is a detailed description of today's elite journalists their social backgrounds, political opinions, medications, and orientations toward the news.

        Group Portrait

        "This business of us being a bunch of parlor pinks, limousine liberals and Harvard-educated pink tea types who look down our noses at anybody who was born west of the Hudson River is a lot of baloney."

        James Deakin, White House Correspondent

        Are the media biased? One premise of this book is that the question is wrongly phrased. Between overt bias and pristine objectivity exist infinite shadings, subtle colorations, and elective affinities between personal outlook and news product. The trail that leads from journalists' perspectives to the news they report is often poorly marked. It winds through conscious attitudes, unquestioned assumptions, and inner motivations. This chapter examines the first factor in this complex progression, the actual backgrounds and outlooks of leading journalists.

        Who Are the Media Elite?

        During 1979 and 1980, we directed hour long interviews with 238 journalists at America's most influential media outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and the news organizations at CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS. Within each organization, individuals were selected randomly from the news staffs. From print media, we sampled reporters, columnists, department heads, bureau chiefs, editors, and executives. From television, we selected correspondents, anchors, producers, film editors, and news executives. The result is a systematic sample of the men and women who put together the news at America's most important media outlets the media elite.

        To provide comparisons with a more traditional leadership group, we also surveyed 216 executives at six Fortune-listed corporations, ranging from a multinational oil company and a major bank to a public utility and a nationwide retail chain. They were chosen randomly from the upper and middle management at each company. The focus of our inquiry is the media elite. At appropriate points, however, we will compare their responses to those of the corporate executives.