Rolling Stone Magazine cover of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
The August 1st cover of Rolling Stone Magazine featured a “selfie,” a self-portrait of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers. The magazine cover sparked much controversy in the news and on social media. Many businesses and chain stores such as CVS and Walgreens removed the magazine from sales racks. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino accused Rolling Stone of giving “celebrity treatment” to a suspected terrorist. The issue generated double the sales for the publisher. Fred Ritchin has pointed out how the same image was not controversial when it accompanied a New York Times article although its use in Rolling Stone has sparked protest. Read Ritchin’s short essay and comment on whether you think the Rolling Stone cover glamourizes Tsarnaev.
Click here to read Ritchin’s essay on Rolling Stone controversy.
If you’re interested, you can read the Rolling Stone story here.
Here are some pictures of other controversial covers.
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Rolling Stone magazine is a pop culture magazine. To have a self-portrait of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover is a disgrace for he company. My main question when i first saw the photographed was “who even took the shot”, but this image could’ve been an old photographed that was given to the magazine. Any how, Im not sure if the magazine was trying to accumulate sales buy have him on the cover, or if any was interested in reading about his childhood, love life, goals or ambitions because again, that photographed looks as if he was in a professional photo shoot with good lighting and back drops. I am not intrigued at all about reading the article. Especially when this particular person was out to hurt people for no apparent reason at all. Rolling Stone magazine needs to stick to the criteria and deal with specific pop culture which is fashion and music.
The August cover of Rolling Stone Magazine with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s self-portrait raised a lot of controversy. It raised a lot of controversy because it glorifies the 19 year old. To be placed or featured on Rolling Stone Magazine normally means that the person is a celebrity is one who is respected and liked by the majority of readers. Without thinking, the reader instantly assumes and understands this; it is a fact. The controversy it raised does not stir up any feelings of surprise or shock to me because simply; his nickname says it all. He is the Boston Bomber, and any terrorist should not be given “celebrity treatment”. Being placed on the magazine covers insinuates publicity and a high status profile and the end result is you trying to “understand” the mind of a bomber; it softens his story. This is acceptable in a newspaper because it is their sole purpose to report on events going on in the world. The newspaper gives you information about an event and it is given without a writer or publisher performing any sort or form of manipulation.
I don’t think Rolling Stone tried to glamourize Tsuarez, but putting him on the cover of the August edition, that is the message that is going to get across to many people. Rolling Stone shouldn’t have put him on the cover, although they were trying to tell his story, it was a poor decision. The last thing America wants to see is an individual who harmed so many people.
i agree with Fred because they were trying to get a massage across. though they got the wrong message across people were so mad at rolling stone because of that venders stop selling their magazines as well. i believe there were many scoops, and controversies that rolling stone put out like kidnapping Paul Getty, Charles Mason, elton john. theres a reason why they did this however i don’t know what the message was towards the Boston bomber.
I feel Rolling Stone or any media coverage has the main goal of getting a consumers attention while causing a disruption that eventually lead to more sales for the company in which they did with the self portrait of the alleged bomber Tsarnaev which expressed so much about him just from his eyes. However I don’t feel that Rolling Stone was trying to glorify the acts that consider Tsarnaev to be a terrorist. If someone who had no idea of who the subject was and he had done at first glance they would consider him to an artist of some sort. The artistic popularity behind those red letters is what made it to be observed as being glorified. For example when New York Times printed their daily paper with the same self portrait of Tsarnaev it invoked the readers to believe that he was a lost boy trapped in his own troubles and acted out in manners that lead to tragedy. Rolling Stone which has always shown its enthusiasm and pride for the American culture would not want to damage their reputation in this manner.
I don’t think the Rolling Stones magazine was trying to glamorizing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. I believe they were just trying to get the news out. That is what magazines do, they provide news and articles that might interest the public and obviously it did ignite the public. I do think having his face on the cover was a little insensitive but after all it was big news heard everywhere. When I read the smaller headline where it says “How a popular promising student, was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam and became a monster”, it shows the reader that the Rolling Stones wasn’t trying to glamorize Tsarnaev but show the world how normal kid became a monster. In the end, the Rolling Stones is a business and by having this much controversy and buzz around this cover probably boosted sales.
I don’t believe Rolling Stones was trying to make it seem as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was “the man” . I think that since the Rolling Stones is a pop culture magazine they have to talk about whats popular. While talking about current events they also have to tie in was important to their urban readers. The new “selfie”pose is being using all over the world. I think that was a perfect way to intertwine the two. I also think that putting a selfie of him was a perfect way to get readers to beware and get educated on whats happing in the world but again they have to do it in a way will people will be interested. For a business I think it was a “iffy ” thing to do considering of how controversy it is because it could have increased their sales or decreased their sales.
I believe that Rolling Stone magazine have made a mistake in putting Tsarnaev on the front cover, being on the front cover of any magazine is a big deal, so by putting Tsarnaev on the front cover does glorify him in a way. This kind of story would more likely fit on the front of a newspaper, with a picture of Tsarnaev in hand cuffs and not a “selfie” that makes him look nothing like a man who did something as terrible as he did. If the magazine put a different picture of Tsarnaev that didn’t make him look innocent than it would have been a bit better, if you were to look at the picture of the “selfie” without knowing the story behind it you would think Tsarnaev is just a normal guy, but if you saw lets say a mug shot of him you would automatically say to yourself this guy did something bad without even reading the story.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is portrayed on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine; a widespread magazine in which millions are conversing about. As most of us know Rolling Stone presents celebrities and musicians, the question is why is Tsarnaev on the cover of a widespread magazine? A potential bomber of the Boston marathon. Maybe it’s not to glamorize him, maybe its to get a message across, a message in which explains the truth, perhaps the reasons in which why he harmed those innocent people. The photo taken gives us the impression that Tsarnaev is just a normal teenage kid who started to fall downhill after an incident with his parents; exploring why or what triggered someone to commit such a horrible crime. Grated publishers wanted to get their message across, they were aware that they have to face some consequences after pulling something like this off, they wanted to make a statement in which stood out to the public.
If anyone sees this magazine in a sales rack not knowing whom this person is, will definitely think that, this young man in cover page is a celebrity. But if you read the headline says “The Bomber” and the subhead underneath it, then everything clears out what it is about. I don’t think Rolling Stone was trying to glamourize the Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But if we think from the perspective of a victim or their family who lost their loved ones then it’s definitely very offending and insulting. Putting a bomber’s heroic image in the cover of this famous magazine was a bad decision. This picture could have been darken a little bit or make it look like this person is the killer and a bomber but not look like he is a celebrity. Choosing a right photography is very important; it should be meaningful and needs to match the facts. This magazine wasn’t trying to glamorize the bomber but they have picked a wrong picture to put it as cover photo. Its true that they were trying to across a message but this is not a right way. New York Times have also put this same image which didn’t offended anyone because they didn’t enlarged his face and didn’t use that much lighting. Everyone used to this fact that newspaper is suppose to brings us what is going on in this world. But we are not familiar with magazine bringing the cruelty in their front cover.