I know I should believe you rather than my lyin' eyes, but I've managed to track down the photo in question. It can be found on page 278 of "Battleship Missouri An Illustrated History," by Paul Stillwell. That's Missouri in the lead, followed by Ranger (not a CVN, but probably a CVA at the time -- it's hard to remember with all the different designations the carriers had), and then Long Beach. It's identified as "Battle Group Sierra," steaming in the North Arabian sea in 1987. It strikes me as a tad unlikely for the Navy to assemble a battle group in the North Arabian sea soley for a publicity shot.
On page 298 of the same book is a photo of Missouri captioned thusly: "The Missouri steams as part of a battle group formation during PacEx '89 in October of 1989. The New Jersey is at left; the carrier Enterprise is just beyond the Missouri's foremast."
"Battleship New Jersey An Illustrated History," also by Mr. Stillwell, has on page 256 a photo captioned, "The New Jersey steams as part of the carrier Midway's battle group in the Western Pacific in July 1982."
Not that the Navy is above the good publicity stunt now and then, but the example I posted was not one of those.
The BBs had their own surface action groups, while CVNs can barely see a single escort a good deal of the time.
BBs indeed had their own surface action groups, but they were also used as needed for other purposes. I suspect the groups with the carriers were examples of the latter.
Regarding CVNs barely seeing a single escort a good deal of the time, you're simply wrong. True, they don't ordinarily steam in the tight formation pictured (that much is for the photo op), but I served aboard USS Chicago (CG-11) in the early to mid-70s, and we provided escort services for Kitty Hawk and Constellation, IIRC. We saw the carriers up close and personal. Once, in fact, our OOD missed a signal to turn, and the carrier's flight deck d*mn near cut off our superstructure.
The BB provides no air umbrella and no ASW protection. Having it run with a CVN strike group just makes no sense.
The carrier provides the air umbrella and the cans provide the ASW protection. You might just as well complain that the carrier provides no ASW and the cans provide no air cover.