Newsmax — whose website is responsible for all those blinking "Vote!" Internet ads featuring Barack Obama and Ann Coulter — is the magazine for right-y types with limited world views. It's also the latest magazine that Roger Friedman would be proud of: It put Tim Russert on the cover. Except the issue went to bed before Russert's death, which means there's no posthumous reflection going on in there. Now, because he is dead, and also because many people liked him very much, Russert is being revered as the godfather of television news — despite many of the bad, mean, negative stories we've heard about him since he passed. But there is on Newsmax, scowling, which puts the magazine in the semi-awkward position of defending a perfectly decent cover. Explains EIC Cable Neuhaus:

"The magazine had already shipped, darnit. It had just shipped, in fact. We could not modify the covers — not the ones going to subs, not the ones traveling to newsstands. The book was on its way to readers … with Russert on the cover, and nothing could be done to avert an, uh, awkward situation. At least, thank goodness, we were singing Tim Russert's praises, essentially calling him the most influential political pundit/reporter on TV."

Thanks goodness indeed — otherwise Newsmax' tail would be even further between its legs. Which begs the question: How many more weeks must pass before it's appropriate to start telling some Russert horror stories?

[Portfolio]