Well, probably the final. The Time effort was so egregious, CF's not going to set an artificial limit on running critiques.

But for me, and from a strictly inside-journalism perspective, the most truly astonishing thing about the gushing cover story was this: Beck didn't give writer David Von Drehle the time of day. He stiffed the mag and still got rewarded with a valentine. Journalists who understand how the magazine profile business works must still be shaking their heads over that one.

And FYI, here's how it works: If a major mag profiles a cover subject, especially if the subject is part of the media/entertainment complex the way Beck is, the person at the center of the attention grants the mag access. And then the mag writer spends way too many paragraphs describing the subject's office/home and verbal ticks and what they're (supposedly) really like in private, etc. It's called scene setting. And the whole point of cover profiles is to get that face time with the subject, and to take readers inside that person's world.

Here's the cover profile trick, though: If the subject, for whatever reason, refuses to cooperate (and pisses off mag editors in the process), than the subject runs the risk of getting roughed up a bit in print. Refusing to cooperate doesn't automatically mean a hit piece is coming, but it does mean the subjects may get hit with some dings along the way.

Now back to Time. The mag put Beck on the cover, yet Time couldn't get ten minutes with Beck for an interview. (At least nothing on the record that I could find.) There is no scene-setting in Time, and there's no indication Von Drehle got any face time with Beck. It's quite astonishing: Time put Beck on the cover, yet when it came to writing the story, Beck told Time to get lost, forcing Time to craft the dreaded write-around, which meant interviewing Beck's former colleagues from a decade ago, and reposting Time's brief Q&A with Beck from 2008.

Not only was Beck's refusal to cooperate a shot to Time's pride. But for the mag to then turn around to treat Beck with such velvety soft hands it's just almost too much to take.

There was a silver lining to Time's debacle, however. Imagine how vigorous Time's cheerleading would've been if Back had cooperated with the profile.