It’s entirely appropriate that Ken Auletta’s quickie biography of CNN founder Ted Turner, an outgrowth of a 2001 New Yorker profile, has been released while the fate of CBS News’s Dan Rather remains uncertain. Mr. Auletta, a veteran journalist who travels in elite “old media” circles in Manhattan, chronicles the rise and fall of the imaginative yet bombastic Mr. Turner with the sympathetic view that only a privileged insider could have.

Never mind that Mr. Turner rose from Southern obscurity in the mid-1970s, dismissed by the “powers that be” as a kook who was unstable and not suitable for polite society. By the time Mr. Auletta found time to humanize “Captain Outrageous,” Mr. Turner had long been accepted, even if somewhat reluctantly, as a late-20th century icon. He regularly demonized competitor Rupert Murdoch, pledged $1 million to the United Nations, and was Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1991.

Blurbs on the back cover of books are rarely meant to be taken seriously – usually, authors take turns praising each other – but a comment from Walter Isaacson typifies the incestuous nature of “Media Man” (Atlas Books, 183 pages, $22.95). He says: “Ted Turner is the media world’s greatest visionary, and Ken Auletta is the media world’s greatest chronicler. So this is a perfect match.” Oh, and Ken, get your girl to call my guy, and we’ll all have lunch at Michael’s.

Such an endorsement is benign, but why would Mr. Isaacson make such a goofy statement? Mr. Turner, an extremely ambitious and at one time prescient entrepreneur, has seen his influence vanish while Rupert Murdoch, never accepted by the likes of Mr. Auletta, continues to provide “visionary” ideas even as a septuagenarian executive.

That’s not to suggest “Media Man” is completely devoid of merit. Younger readers who aren’t acquainted with the familiar biography of Mr. Turner will find most of the basics in Mr. Auletta’s book. There is a description of Mr. Turner’s tumultuous relationship with his father, who later committed suicide; the future billionaire’s daring decision to create the “superstation” TBS in the mid-1970s; his purchase of the Atlanta Braves and Hawks sports franchises; his womanizing, drinking, and America’s Cup victory; his marriage to Jane Fonda; and the mergers of his company with Time Warner and – most disastrously for him – AOL in January of 2000.

Mr. Auletta dutifully includes some of Mr. Turner’s ill-advised public utterances, such as saying, in the wake of September 11, that the Al Qaeda suicide terrorists were “a little nuts” but “brave” and his self-proclaimed similarity to Winston Churchill (he compared Mr. Murdoch to Hitler). Mr. Turner’s philanthropy and political views are given attention, including his stands on global warming, the sanctity of the United Nations, nuclear disarmament, and reverence for the environment. The author even describes his conversations with Ms. Fonda after the couple divorced, quoting the aging actress and activist as saying “We went in different directions. I grew up.”

One passage in “Media Man” sums up why this book is an instant anachronism. Mr. Auletta writes about the myriad problems of the newly created AOL Time Warner, the colossal merger that’s been the subject by now of too many books and articles. Reacting to less-than-anticipated profit margins in 2001, the company offered buyouts to Time Inc. employees older than 50. One veteran who accepted the deal, Daniel Okrent – now the public editor of the New York Times – lamented to Mr. Auletta, “What I fear is that Time Inc. will become just another company. It’s not special anymore.”

In fact, Time Inc. hadn’t been “special” for more than a decade. Around the time it was naming Mr. Turner Man of the Year it was also abandoning the editorial philosophy of founder Henry Luce and pursued a softer brand of entertainment and lifestyle journalism, with a smattering of indistinguishable political coverage thrown in as almost an afterthought.

But the most damning sentence written by Mr. Auletta in “Media Man,” the one that epitomizes the attitude of the elite members of the press in Washington, D.C., and Manhattan, is this: “At fifty-three, [Mr. Okrent] wanted to write a book and spend more time with his family on the Cape.” The Cape. I wouldn’t suppose that would be Florida’s Cape Canaveral, Maryland’s Cape Saint Claire, or North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras. Obviously not: “The Cape” is Cape Cod. This shorthand is indicative of the arrogance that Mr. Auletta and his colleagues regularly demonstrate.

If the author’s unabashed elitism weren’t so revolting it would almost seem quaint. The “media world” that’s insulated people like Mr. Auletta and Mr. Isaacson for so long has turned upside down in the last several years. These are people who still, without irony, refer to most Americans as “ordinary citizens” when covering politics, the economy, public education, and race relations.

Ted Turner told the author that the number of mergers in his chosen career worried him, that he was concerned about the “impact of media consolidation on journalism.” It’s true that this “consolidation” was not ultimately beneficial to Mr. Turner, and probably not to stalwarts like Mr. Rather. But it’s hard to imagine that even an inveterate insider such as Mr. Auletta, in an unguarded moment, would not admit that the country’s readers, viewers, and listeners today have a far wider array of choices than in the good old days of a generation ago.

Mr. Smith last wrote for these pages on the Atlantic Monthly.