Bomber as Rock Star? Rolling Stone cover outrage
In this magazine cover image released by Wenner Media,
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appears on the cover.
NEW YORK (AP) — Sultry eyes burn
into the camera lens from behind tousled curls. A scruff of sexy beard and
loose T-shirt are bathed in soft, yellow light.
The close-up of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on
the cover of Rolling Stone hitting shelves Friday looks more like a young Bob
Dylan or Jim Morrison than the 19-year-old who pleaded not guilty a little more
than a week ago in the Boston Marathon bombing, his arm in a cast and his face
swollen in cour
Has the magazine, with its roundly
condemned cover, offered the world its first rock star of an alleged Islamic
terrorist?
The same image of Tsarnaev was
widely circulated and used by newspapers and magazines before, but in this
context it took on new criticism and accusations that Rolling Stone turned the
bombing defendant into something more appealing.
"I can't think of another
instance in which one has glamorized the image of an alleged terrorist. This is
the image of a rock star. This is the image of someone who is admired, of
someone who has a fan base, of someone we are critiquing as art," said
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor and the director of the
Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Public outrage was swift, including
hard words from the Boston mayor, bombing survivors and the governor of
Massachusetts. At least five retailers with strong New England ties — CVS,
Tedeschi Food Stores and the grocery chain the Roche Bros. — said they would
not sell the issue that features an in-depth look into how a charming,
well-liked teen took a dark turn toward radical Islam. Stop & Shop and
Walgreens followed suit.
Tsarnaev is not referred to as
Tsarnaev in the article. The magazine uses his playful diminutive instead in a
headline: "Jahar's World." With cover teasers for other stories on
Willie Nelson, Jay-Z and Robin Thicke, it declares for the Tsarnaev story:
"The Bomber. How a Popular, Promising Student was Failed by His Family,
Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster."
Rolling Stone did not address
whether the photo was edited or filtered in any way in a brief statement
offering condolences to bombing survivors and the loved ones of the dead.
"The fact that Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it
all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and
gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens,"
the statement said.
That's little consolation for James
"Bim" Costello, 30, of Malden, Mass., who needed pig skin grafts on
most of his right arm and right leg after the bombing. His body was pebbled
with shrapnel, including nails he pulled out of his stomach himself. Three of
his close friends lost legs that day and others suffered serious burns and
shrapnel injuries.
"I think whoever wrote the
article should have their legs blown off by someone," struggle through
treatment "and then see who they would choose to put on the cover."
The accompanying story, he said,
"just seems like a cry for attention" from Rolling Stone.
The transit police officer who was
shot during a showdown with Tsarnaev and his older brother said he hoped the
cover didn't glorify the surviving suspect in readers' eyes.
"They could've picked anybody
else," Officer Richard Donohue told NBC's "Today" show on
Thursday. "There's a number of people they could have picked for an arts
and entertainment magazine than an alleged bomber."
Lauren Gabler had finished her
fourth Boston Marathon and was two blocks from the finish line explosions that
April day. At first she thought the Rolling Stone photo, released on the
magazine's website and Facebook page, was of a model or a rock star.
"All of a sudden you realize
that's the Boston bomber," said Gabler, who lives in the Washington, D.C.,
area. "The cover almost tricks you into what you're looking at. I haven't
read the article yet, and I know it will probably be quite in-depth, but my
initial reaction is that the photo that's being used almost makes him look like
a good guy."
Rolling Stone said the cover story
was part of its "long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful
coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day."
And the magazine has had plenty of covers featuring people outside the realm of
entertainment, from President Obama to Charles Manson.
Putting criminals and alleged
criminals on the covers of major magazines is justified if they are major news
figures, said Samir Husni, a journalism professor who heads the Magazine
Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. It's digitally manipulating
a photo that never is, said Husni, reached by phone on vacation in his native
Lebanon.
"They'll probably regret it
later," he said of Rolling Stone's handling of its cover. "Even if it
wasn't doctored it's going to bring those negative reactions."
Hundreds of Facebook and Twitter
commenters condemned the magazine. Many cursed. Others expressed sadness and
still more vowed never to read or purchase the magazine again.
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino spoke
for them in a letter he dashed off to Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner
accusing the magazine of offering Tsarnaev "celebrity treatment" and
calling the cover "ill-conceived, at best," in that it supports the
"terrible message that destruction gains fame for killers and their
'causes.'"
The letter goes on to call the cover
an obvious marketing strategy and concludes: "The survivors of the Boston
attacks deserve Rolling Stone cover stories, though I no longer feel that
Rolling Stone deserves them."
What does the controversy say about
the culture today? It's a culture that has already produced an online fandom
for the attractive young bombing suspect, including young girls calling him
"hot" and promising to help clear his name. At his hearing last week,
a dozen or so girls wore T-shirts and stickers bearing his face.
Jamieson had this to say on that
score:
"If you took that picture and
you walked into an audience three months before the bombing and you said,
'Here, this is a cover of Rolling Stone,' what would people say? They'd say,
'Ah, a new artist emerges on the national stage and Rolling Stone is doing a
cover. What is his name? Well I guess it's Bomber.'"
Associated Press writers Cara
Rubinsky, Steve LeBlanc and Bridget Murphy contributed to this report from
Boston. David R. Martin contributed from New York.
