Trump overtakes Putin as the most talked about person in Russia’s media

By Nadezhda Vasilieva

United States President Donald Trump has ousted Russian President Vladimir Putin as the person referenced most often by Russia’s news outlets in the month of January, the country’s largest private news agency Interfax reported, citing their own media analysis tool.

With 202,000 references, Trump knocked Putin (147,000 references) from the top spot – a spot the Russian leader has held since he began his third term as President in May 2012, according to Interfax’s System of Comprehensive News Analysis (SCAN).

The third place was also occupied by an American – Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama with 61,155 references.

Other persons of media interest in January also included Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (40,862 references), the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko (34,763), the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov (27,420), Democratic candidate at the US presidential race Hillary Clinton, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (16,513), the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych (13,081) and the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (12, 155).

SCAN analyses 240,000 documents a day, and counts the number of documents with a reference to a particular person for a specified period enrolled in the database central and regional media organizations, news agencies, specialized and industry publications, TV and radio, the Internet sites.