I’m assuming this project used the Times API as a starting point, which provides article metadata (such as url and keywords and headline). I’m not particularly

I’m assuming this project used the Times API as a starting point, which provides article metadata (such as url and keywords and headline). I’m not particularly interested in word frequency as I am story count and placement. For example, an A1 story about Trump is the same as an A1 story about Obama, regardless of how many times the words Trump and Obama literally appear in the story. Part of this is that it is quantization that maps with how stories are actually written an edited — words used in the story’s headline and lede grafs are the highest quality signals. The other thing is the very nature of the label “Trump”. Many stories about Trump are specifically about his commercial and real estate holdings, which are all branded “Trump”. To quantify a story as being several times as “obsessed” with Trump, just because the story involves Trump’s holdings, seems like an unintended effect. That said, I’m not surprised by this study’s findings. Coverage of Trump has an intensity that seems to far outstrip what is given for a president, even accounting for the various dustups he personally gets himself into. But the essay feels a bit shallow in its hypothesis for this “obsession”. The author argues that this obsession is created by the NYT, partly as a response to mutual antagonism between them and Trump...and, that’s it? No mention of how Trump runs his administration far more via personal dictum than his predecessors. His generals and cabinet secretaries and chief staff members are constantly contradicted by Trump himself. Reporters have learned where power flows, and their job is to go straight to where the decisions are being made. Reporters would be absolutely fucking moronic not to focus on Trump, especially when he’s so open to sharing his decisions (in interviews and in tweets). To put it another way: do the authors honestly believe that during the Bush years, the press wasn’t antagonistic towards GWB? That a greater proportion of stories back then focused on Cheney and Rumsfeld because those two were natural targets of obsession, versus Pence and whoever is filling in for Gen. Mattis? To reiterate my point, has any of the past administrations since Nixon have had “acting” SecDefs and Chiefs of Staff for as long as Trump currently has?