How does media coverage of a two-term president evolve from their first term to their second term to their post-office period? In particular, how quickly do they fade from the news, does their second term receive less coverage their first and are they referred to as "was" or "is"?
The timeline below shows the percentage of airtime mentioning "Obama" on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News July 2009 to present using the Internet Archive's Television News Archive, exhibiting a stairstep pattern in which Obama received less coverage during his second term than his first and rapidly faded after Donald Trump's inauguration.
The timeline below shows the airtime devoted to mentions of "obama is" or "obama was", capturing both present and past references to "is/was" descriptors. Here the post-presidency drop is even more significant, reflecting that after a president leaves office, they become an "administration" rather than a person. Note that there are other ways a president can be referred to, such as "obama's administration" or "the last administration" and so on, but the word "is" offers a simple entrancepoint to this broader set of references.
Finally, what about the present-tense "is" to reflect discussion of the president in the present time? This shows a complete collapse post-presidency.
