Lichter has authored or co-authored fourteen books and over a hundred scholarly articles and monographs on the news and entertainment media. His best-known work, "The Media Elite," (written with Stanley Rothman and Linda Lichter, and funded by conservative foundations) argued that journalists, on average, held more liberal political views than the general public, and that their backgrounds and outlooks affect their coverage of the news. This claim was extended by conservative pundits as evidence for a liberal bias in the media. It also provoked widespread debate among journalists and their critics. "The Media Elite" was based on interviews with major media journalists and content analysis of their work.