Readers of the New York Times no doubt noticed the stunning saturation coverage of a New York appearance by Billy Graham that appeared in the newspaper for most of the last week. The coverage included at least two articles a day about Graham, usually on the front page, or with a lead-in from the front page, and utilized a wide swath of the paper’s reporting staff. Examples from just the last few days alone include this article, by Andy Newman, from the front page of today’s Times; this one by Newman, from yesterday’s Times; this one, by Michael Luo, also from yesterday’s Times, where it appeared on the front page of the Week in Review section; this one, by Newman again, from the front page of the Saturday Times; this Newman article, also from Saturday’s Times; this one, by Daniel J. Wakin, from the front page of Friday’s Metro section; or this one, by Robin Finn, also from Friday’s Times . . . . and there were numerous others in the days before that. It was painstakingly obvious that the full-page ads placed by the Billy Graham Crusade — usually on the back page of a section, charges for which run in the six figures — ads that ran almost every day last week, were of course a large part of what motivated such extraordinary coverage . . . coverage that was made all the more notable by the fact that on almost all of the days it ran not even the war in Iraq merited front page mention in the Times. But whatever prompted the Times to such relentless presentation of Graham as the dominant and friendly face of American evangelical fundamentalism, and to so wildly overstate his impact upon the residents of New York City, the impact of the coverage, and the resonance between the New York media, can be seen in a brief Publishers Weekly report by Steven Zeitchik. Zeitchik details a book deal between Warner Books‘ Christian imprint Warner Faith and Time magazine writers Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy “to write on the evangelical leader’s relationships with eleven presidents, going from Truman to Bush II. The book promises ‘the details of the relationships, how they evolved — in some cases over several generations — and how they altered the larger political landscape.'” And Zeitchik says Putnam, meanwhile, has announced it will publish transcripts of Graham’s New York appearance as soon as next month.