It doesn't mean "Just NYT opinion writers". It means all the people who think they're leading culture around on a leash by pushing their articles in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Mother Jones etc. and so forth.
And that very much is a social class, or more accurately, its a specific subset of a social class. Another subset of the same social class are book editors at the major publishing houses. Look around on LinkedIn. You'll find that easily 3 in 4 of them are female, went to a small-to-medium-sized liberal arts college, etc. They literally gatekeep both fiction and non-fiction, and its why self-publishing and alternative publishing outlets are on the rise.
There are likely other subsets of this same social class that I'm unfamiliar with, but I don't generally give it much thought, because I don't care and I don't have to care.
EDIT: Sorry, I meant 3 out of 4 of them are female, not 1-in-4.
And that very much is a social class, or more accurately, its a specific subset of a social class. Another subset of the same social class are book editors at the major publishing houses. Look around on LinkedIn. You'll find that easily 3 in 4 of them are female, went to a small-to-medium-sized liberal arts college, etc. They literally gatekeep both fiction and non-fiction, and its why self-publishing and alternative publishing outlets are on the rise.
There are likely other subsets of this same social class that I'm unfamiliar with, but I don't generally give it much thought, because I don't care and I don't have to care.
EDIT: Sorry, I meant 3 out of 4 of them are female, not 1-in-4.