<p>It’s a provocative cover. I get that. The typography contains the word “monster” but the photo is evocative of a rock star. I am a journalist and I am offended by it although RS can put whatever it wants on its cover. If that man had murdered my little boy I would be incensed beyond belief.</p>
<p>I believe it was soon after the Paducah school shooting that magazines such as Newsweek and Time stopped putting the mass murderer on their covers - regardless of the attractiveness (or not) of the shot, it was decided not to give these people that type of fame. That may have changed.</p>
<p>While I agree with Hunt that it does get us to look beneath the surface of his appearance and explore what influenced his despicable hateful actions, my stronger reaction is that because we know he has become a “heartthrob” to certain teen girls this magazine cover seems to exploit and capitalize on this, not unusual of course in that industry, but distasteful to me.</p>
<p>I find it distressing whenever we give so much attention to murderers in the media that we elevate them to martyr or rockstar status. We need to be aware of this aspect of the issue as well.</p>
<p>It’s the exact same picture that was found on the front page of the NYTimes at the time of the bombing. </p>
<p>RS didn’t send a photographer or a makeup artist over to the jail. They took a photo already widely available in the public domain.</p>
<p>The fact that Tsarnaev is physically attractive doesn’t “glamorize” the shot. If we didn’t know better, he DOES look like the good-looking kid next door, not some twisted maniac with a horrid glint in his eyes. Would it only be acceptable if the picture showed him glaring or looking homicidal or “off”?</p>
<p>^^ I really don’t understand the brouhaha either. This picture has been on the cover of the New Yorker and has been widely circulated before now, so what’s the big deal? </p>
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<p>Exactly. And as I recall, the Rolling Stone issue with Manson on the cover was one of the magazine’s highest-selling issues ever, and that story won some prestigious journalism award, too.</p>
<p>Now that I’ve looked at the cover in detail, I think it’s brilliant. People here - I live in Boston on the Marathon route a few miles from the finish - rarely mention the words on the cover and just focus on the picture. They go together. Here is a good looking kid who seems to be like any other young American male … and the words say “became a monster”. Exactly. </p>
<p>Evil is not always moustache-twisting drooling caricature. How did this kid go from that picture to become a monster?</p>
<p>The New Yorker doesn’t run photos of anyone on its cover. </p>
<p>Let’s face it, no one has written a song about being “On the Front Page of the New York Times.” Rolling Stone is different. They know it. They are feeding the glamorization of this terrorist and making him a rock star. Even if the article is great–and given who wrote it, I highly doubt it. BTW, in every photo I recall seeing of Charles Manson, he looked clearly demented, not like a pouty-faced teen idol.</p>
<p>As I said upthread somewhere, the best thing the prosecution could do is cut a deal where he pleads guilty in exchange for life imprisonment, and let him rapidly sink into well-deserved obscurity. Because there is only going to be more of this.</p>
<p>Lergnom, that’s the obvious justification. But of course they could have answered the question without making him a pinup.</p>
<p>I’d be curious to know if anybody who is a regular reader of Rolling Stone would have the same critical reaction. I used to subscribe (a long time ago–Linda Ronstadt was on the cover), and at the time it ran quite a lot of news and political stories, and I think it still does–I would not have thought that this cover glamorized the bomber, beyond the fact that he does, in fact, look like a pouty-faced teen idol.</p>
<p>That song is about 30-40 years old, and not relevant to today’s young people, at all.</p>
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<p>Yes, Charles Manson “looks” demented, odd, in every picture - because that’s what he looks like. Tsarnaev doesn’t “look” demented or odd. Is the role of journalism to transform people into what we want them to look like, or what they actually look like? Is the role of journalism to only portray evil / bad people looking evil / bad / monstrous? Is the only “acceptable” picture of Tsarnaev one in which he is looking angry or disaffected? What if he had been a Boy Scout – would it be wrong for a magazine to show a picture of him in a Boy Scout uniform helping little old ladies cross the street, if indeed at one point he was indeed helping little old ladies cross the street? It seems to me that the purpose is to show what is, not just assuage our feelings as to what we wish it could be. </p>
<p>And yes, RS does run a lot of news and political stories. I seem to recall recent coverage of Chris Christie, and some further-back coverage of John McCain.</p>
<p>No, I am not suggesting that RS has an obligation to make him look anything other than how he looks.</p>
<p>But if you don’t think that his teen idol look had something to do with their decision to run that picture on the cover, I have swamp land in Florida to sell you.</p>
<p>I think that ALL media has the responsibility to cover stories accurately, but I also think that they need to think seriously about whether they are feeding something damaging in the WAY they do so. RS could have run the exact same story and photo inside the magazine, and it would not be as bad. But this was clearly a purely financial decision, albeit one that may backfire on them.</p>
<p>Yes, RS has a history of running some great reporting on social and political issues. No one is denying that. But they still run the picture of a sexy rock star on their cover. (I glance through the magazine regularly at the library, and sometimes read whole articles, so I am still somewhat familiar with what they do and how they do it.)</p>
<p>To me, the article seems like it’s trying to humanize him. And I think that’s the entire point. He’s not a monster. He’s a human being. Rolling Stone wanted to show that. People always want to understand why these men do what they do, but the one time someone tries to humanize the guy, people go ape****. Is this really what our society has come to? Turning anyone who makes a mistake into a monster? If you ask me, the younger brother is not all that responsible for what happened. He was likely manipulated by his older brother. And the brother probably planned it all. Yes, he went along with it but you have to understand he is still a person, a human being. He still has emotions. Maybe you don’t feel bad for him when he cries (though your reason is ignorant) but you have to understand that he does cry. He does get sad. He does regret things. He does appear to have a “moral compass”.</p>
<p>“He does appear to have a “moral compass”.”</p>
<p>wait, where did you notice this moral compass, because I didn’t notice it when he appeared in court seeing his VICTIMS. and calling his hateful murderous bombing a “mistake” is frankly ridiculous. sorry, I think you are excusing a murderer.</p>
Of course it did. But I don’t understand why my reaction (“How could such a normal, good-looking kid become a monster”)–which is what the caption on the cover says–isn’t the natural one. Critics seem to think that people will see this cover and say, “What a hottie!” Well, maybe some will.</p>
<p>I wondered about the “moral compass” poster, so I checked some of her past posts. She just graduated from high school, so she’s only 17/18 years old. She needs to go back to the sandbox!</p>
<p>I don’t think attempts to understand why these guys did what they did is the same as excusing what they did in any way. Personally, I find it quite alarming that a kid with his experiences could be radicalized enough to participate in a deadly bombing. I wish there was a lot more evidence that he was a monster all along. So far, there isn’t. There’s really no evidence that he had more or less of a moral compass–before he committed mass murder–than thousands upon thousands of other teenagers. That’s very troubling.</p>
<p>And I’d sure prefer that he feel remorse for what he did. If he doesn’t, it’s even more troubling that a normal-seeming dude can transform into a remorseless monster in a couple of years.</p>
<p>I, for one, think that he was a young kid with a disintegrating family, a family that was inclined to run on the shady side in the first place, and under the influence of a dominating older brother and from a cultural background that according to what I have read encouraged him to follow his brother’s lead. His situation, like everyone’s, is nuanced.</p>
<p>But this has NOTHING to do with RS glamorizing him and feeding his celebrity by running this picture on their cover.</p>
<p>And yes, the reaction of many impressionable teens is that he’s a hottie. Look at the #freejahar thing.</p>
There just isn’t much evidence other than the crime itself that he was. (His brother is a different story, maybe.) I think it would be comforting to think that both were sociopaths all along. But if they weren’t, what does that mean? It’s scary, and that’s why we don’t like to think it.</p>
<p>Right. And it would make us feel better if his college roommates or friends had said - why yes, he was a weirdo, he was anti-social, he talked nonstop about how he hated the US, he tortured small animals and kicked little old ladies to the curb. And it would make us feel better if every picture of him was brooding or tortured or menacing, and he posed regularly with guns or bombs. But none of that appears to be true.</p>