[3] Drew attended Wellesley College, where she was a Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1957 with a BA in political science.

She made regular appearances on "Agronsky and Company" and hosted her own interview program, Thirty Minutes With... for PBS between 1971 and 1973, for which she won an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award.

Drew has published 14 books,[7][8] including Washington Journal: The Events of 1973-74 (1975), an account of the Watergate scandal; Portrait of an Election: The 1980 Presidential Campaign (1981); On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (1994);[6] Citizen McCain (2002); and George W. Bush's Washington (2004).

[9][10] In Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden wrote of "Elizabeth Drew's On the Edge, an account of Clinton's first years in the White House.

In 1986, the editors of Snooze: The Best of Our Magazine parodied her as "Elizabeth Drone," author of a "Giant Postcard From Washington.