Rolling Stone and the Boston Bomber Cover

Yeah, it sucks that he's kind of attractive. They should only have put his photo on the cover if he was, like, morbudly obsese and had bad skin.
 
Dungheap said:
Yeah, it sucks that he's kind of attractive. They should only have put his photo on the cover if he was, like, morbudly obsese and had bad skin.
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Maybe they should have put an aerial shot of him huddled in the boat....maybe they should have put a shot of people with their legs blown off.
 
Steelplate said:
Maybe they should have put an aerial shot of him huddled in the boat....maybe they should have put a shot of people with their legs blown off.
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I'm not, like, an editor at Rolling Stone or anything so I can't speak for the editorial intent of using that photo, but it strikes me that the "the is the face of evil" kind of angle they probably had in mind by using that photo would probably have been lost if they went in the direction you suggest. That's just me, though.
 
Dungheap said:
I'm not, like, an editor at Rolling Stone or anything so I can't speak for the editorial intent of using that photo, but it strikes me that the "the is the face of evil" kind of angle they probably had in mind by using that photo would probably have been lost if they went in the direction you suggest. That's just me, though.
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I don't know...perhaps I'm being reactionary on this one...it just rubbed me the wrong way...I do get what you're saying though.
 
Steelplate said:
I don't know...perhaps I'm being reactionary on this one...it just rubbed me the wrong way...I do get what you're saying though.
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FWIW Steelplate I have some friends on Facebook who are fans of the magazine and hated the cover. I was reading the SF Chronicle comments section on their article about the cover and a good majority took your perspective as well. That's not to say Dung is wrong in his opinion but yours is definitely more prevalent in what I've observed.
 
I guess I see the outrage on the premise that making the cover of Rolling Stone is (or was), like, a huge-very-big-fucking-no-shit deal and a sign that a musician or group had finally "made it" so to speak and that putting Tsarnaev on the cover of the Rolling Stone (as opposed to say, Time) carries a particular symbolic meaning with respect to celebrity status. But who really thinks that nowadays?
 
This is silly. It's a picture he published of himself. How the hell is it like a rock star? It's a simplistic image. There's nothing special about it.

Now putting him on the cover at all is stupid. Why the hell does Rolling Stone need to write about terrorists anyway?
 
Here's a comment Steel that sums up pretty well other one's I've read as well. Again, this is just one person so it's not like he speaks for millions of people but he got a lot of agreement.


""I've been reading Rolling Stone all of my life. And while I won't be canceling my subscription, I would like to see the person who approved the Boston Bomber cover fired. Wasn't a mistake - it was a cheap publicity stunt at the expense of the victims. Someone needs to be held accountable.""
 
tinfoil said:
This is silly. It's a picture he published of himself. How the hell is it like a rock star? It's a simplistic image. There's nothing special about it.

Now putting him on the cover at all is stupid. Why the hell does Rolling Stone need to write about terrorists anyway?
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Rolling Stone has done lots of real world journalism. If you look at the caption, it could be an interesting read.

ON HBO, there's a program called "Vice"..it's a half hour program with two 15 minute segments..one of the segments that they did was in Israel, interviewing foiled suicide bombers. Many of them were young, poor, illiterate and naive. They didn't even own a copy of the Quran and had all their religious instruction from an Imam...who was...a terrorist. It was very much a cult like atmosphere and it was pretty obvious that they were using these kids as expendable pawns. When read passages from the Quran that condemned violence...they said that they were never told any of that.

I know that's off topic of my own thread...but, it just came to mind.
 
Dungheap said:
I'm not, like, an editor at Rolling Stone or anything so I can't speak for the editorial intent of using that photo, but it strikes me that the "the is the face of evil" kind of angle they probably had in mind by using that photo would probably have been lost if they went in the direction you suggest. That's just me, though.
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I think it is poignant because the face of evil is deceiving, Dahmer and Bundy were good looking men. A good looking guy can be a terrorist. The Stone does some hard hitting journalism, terrorist can be handsome. The Rolling Stone does controverial stuff.

The pictures they showed on TV were of a good looking normal acting kid. We need to know this.
 
Rana said:
I think it is poignant because the face of evil is deceiving, Dahmer and Bundy were good looking men. A good looking guy can be a terrorist. The Stone does some hard hitting journalism, terrorist can be handsome. The Rolling Stone does controverial stuff.

The pictures they showed on TV were of a good looking normal acting kid. We need to know this.
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Hmm. I hadn't considered that. My first reaction is revulsion. When I see his face I see a little boy running to embrace his father as he finished the marathon, and then all of a sudden not existing. And his little sister losing her limb. And the mother dead. I just can't imagine who would want this magazine with that face on the cover? I would recoil.
 
evince said:
Lawrence Odonnald did a review of it and he said its a crap article that doesn't do much but talk to all his friends who said he was a great guy.
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So, it really doesn't go into detail about his decline into extremism? I was hoping for better....especially for a cover story.
 
Darla said:
Hmm. I hadn't considered that. My first reaction is revulsion. When I see his face I see a little boy running to embrace his father as he finished the marathon, and then all of a sudden not existing. And his little sister losing her limb. And the mother dead. I just can't imagine who would want this magazine with that face on the cover? I would recoil.
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There is a lot of outrage over the cover, I understand the revulsion, I truly do, I haven't read the article, yet. I understand there are certain stores refusing to sell it, people are that angry over it.
 
evince said:
Lawrence Odonnald did a review of it and he said its a crap article that doesn't do much but talk to all his friends who said he was a great guy.
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So now you've got your talking points and you'll know how to come down on this....
 
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