Just how much has the Times been obsessed with Wednesday Martin's book Primates of Park Avenue?
Let us count the ways:
May 16, 2015: 1372-word essay by the author on the front of the Sunday Review section.
May 31, 2015: 1130-word column about the book on the front of the metro section.
May 31, 2015: 888-word Sunday book review.
June 3, 2015: 1150-word review on the front of the arts section.
June 3, 2015: 622-word Times Insider article explaining "the fact that educated, affluent mothers in their 40s drive so much traffic on the Internet and they rarely let stories about educated, affluent mothers in their 40s go ignored."
The comment about "traffic on the Internet" driving the Times' editorial decision-making process would tend to undercut the claim by the paper's editor, Dean Baquet, that:
It's out of the question here that the metrics would drive the kind of work we do. If I ever let the numbers start to dictate our journalism, reporters would open a window in the newsroom and throw me out. It's just not in the Times DNA to let that happen.
Mr Baquet's claim seems like wishful thinking in light of the Times' overkill coverage of this book.