"Lent: “What would you consider your major contribution to the field of scholarship? Your assessment of what you’ve done in a lifetime.” Herman: “The introduction of a structural model of the media, the use of pairing analysis, and the use of these methodological devices or frameworks in dozens of applications. The techniques are not new, but I and my co-authors have possibly given them more salience. Also, not new but hopefully in a useful framework is the focus on the mass media as elite-based and elite-serving institutions, with biases that follow accordingly. In a way, my writings have virtually all been an exposure of these biases and a demonstration that the idea of a 'party line' applies to the mainstream US media as well as to media in authoritarian countries.”"