Newsweek prematurely ships ‘Madame President’ mag covers

Newsweek issued a national recall for its commemorative "Madame President" issues.

Nov 10, 2016

On Wednesday, Newsweek issued a national recall for its commemorative “Madame President” issues. The issues featured Hillary Clinton on the cover and celebrated her historic presidential win and were prematurely shipped out before the election was called on Tuesday.

Now, Newsweek is issuing a recall and quickly shipping out the issue with Donald Trump on the cover instead.

“Like everybody else, we got it wrong,” said Tony Romando, CEO of Topix Media, the Newsweek partner which produces special issues.

From the Editors: 2 special edition covers for 2016 election outcomes were produced by a Newsweek licensee, Topix Media, and not by Newsweek pic.twitter.com/MwC4RytGbC

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) November 7, 2016

–How Clinton could still end up in the White House–

Although commemorative issues were created with both Trump and Clinton on the cover, Topix Media believed, like so many others, that Clinton would be the president, and so they only shipped the Clinton covers.

While stores were told not to stock the Clinton issues on their shelves until the election was officially called, 17 issues were still sold.

“All wholesalers and retailers have been asked to return any issues they have as we need to clear room for [150,000 copies of] the President Trump issue,” Romando said. “We expect it to sell very well as there is obviously a great demand.”

Romnando added that more copies of the Trump special issue would be printed because the surprise victory would lead to increased demand.