There are two obvious reasons why the punditocracy overwhelmingly favors the rich.

1) Rich people own the media corporations.

2) Rich people own the major advertisers.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) points out another reason in its blog. Many of these talking heads are the rich.

Matthew Yglesias writes today (2/23/09) on the oddity of Gregory making a distinction between fat cats and people like himself. I can't find a published estimate of Gregory's salary, but his NBC colleague Chris Matthews reportedly makes $5 million a year (Washington Post, 1/8/09), as did his Meet the Press predecessor Tim Russert (Washington Post, 5/23/04), so Gregory's salary is probably in that neighborhood, give or take a few million. This is a hundred times the median family income in the U.S.--not counting Gregory's spouse's income; she used to be a vice president at Fannie Mae, making an estimated $3 million a year.