The Boston Marathon Bomber: How Rolling Stone magazine turned a terrorist into a rock star

An early copy of Rolling Stone magazine’s August 2013 issue featuring the cover story on Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, which triggered criticism that the magazine was “glamorizing terrorism”. The article, titled “The Bomber,” was described by the magazine as a “deeply reported account of the life and times” of Tsarnaev. (AFP/Getty Images)

Lifestyle magazine “Rolling Stone” has had a diverse range of people grace its cover over the years. From presidents and rockstars to actors, models and sportspersons. Heck, even cartoon characters have had their time on the front page.

But there is also a less popular category on that list: a murder suspect.

As unbelievable as it sounds, the editors at the popular magazine have thrown a curveball with their latest August edition, planting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its cover and making the man look like a rockstar.

As most of the sporting world and indeed the wider world are well aware, Tsarnaev is the man who, along with his deceased brother Tamerlan, stands accused of carrying out the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15th.

Three people lost their lives and more than 260 people were injured in the attacks when two pressure cooker bombs packed with nails, ball bearings and other shrapnel were detonated close to the finish line of America’s most famous marathon. It was the worst mass-casualty attack on US soil since 9/11.

Ever since the cover of Tsarnaev was released to the public earlier this week, the backlash has been strong and relentless. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook exploded with objection, as words such as “tasteless,” “sickening” and “disgusting” were hauled at the magazine from thousands of commentators.

A new Facebook page set up to protest against the magazine, “Boycott Rolling Stone Magazine For Their Latest Cover”, has garnered 170,000 likes in less than a week, and the magazine’s actual Facebook page has been bombarded with tens of thousands of messages of complaint and anger.

Celebrities and musicians were swift to join the public condemnation too. Pop singer Pink retweeted a message sent by radio presenter Ted Stryker which read: “Horrible, classless, stupid choice Rolling Stone. It’s not smart or edgy. Very disappointed.”

Boston punk band Dropkick Murphys, who recently donated $300,000 to victims of the Boston marathon bombings, also expressed their anger. “Rolling Stone you should be ashamed,” the band tweeted. “How about one of the courageous victims on your cover instead of this loser scum bag!“

The outrage quickly spilled out of the internet and into real life. On Wednesday, three prominent New England-based businesses – CVS pharmacies, Stop & Stop, and Tedeschi Food Shops – announced that they would not stock the magazine.

The bad news was not contained just to the New England region, however. The convenience store corporation “7-Eleven” announced on Thursday that its nearly 1,700 company stores across the country wouldn’t sell the issue, and encouraged its 5,900 franchise stores to follow suit. Even the Illinois-based drugstore chain “Walgreens and Rite Aid”, based in Pennsylvania, has said that its stores wouldn’t carry the issue.

A runner reacts near Kenmore Square after two bombs exploded during the 117th Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Getty Images)

Desperately clawing against what has quickly become a public relations nightmare, the editors at Rolling Stone tried to justify their decision in a statement, which explained that the article falls within the traditions of journalism and reflects the publication’s commitment to serious, thoughtful coverage:

“Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families,” Rolling Stone said. “The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day.”

The magazine added that “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.”

That’s all very well, but the statement only justifies the content of the story, not the need for the glamorous cover photo. The content is not the issue here – it does exactly what the magazine said it was trying to do; examine the complexities of the issue to gain a more complete understanding of how this could have happened to Tsarnaev.

Janet Reitman, the Rolling Stone editor who penned the article, spent two months interviewing Mr. Tsarnaev’s friends and family as the basis for the story. The article itself is thoughtful, provocative, and well worth a read.

But as I said, this isn’t about the article itself. It is about the picture on the front, because despite what the proverb warns, we do judge a book by its cover and especially when it is a magazine cover.

The images that a magazine sends out to the world are more powerful than the words in its pages. They are seen by far more people on shelves in convenience stores and book stores all over the world. And the image that Rolling Stone has put out is out of taste, no matter what words are there to accompany it.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick seems to agree:

So why is this cover image out of taste? Because it is on the cover of Rolling Stone. It is that simple.

An image is inseparably linked to the publication on which it is printed. In this case, despite its attempts to produce hard hitting, serious content, Rolling Stone is still essentially a glamour and entertainment magazine.

It is a magazine known the world over for being edgy, sexy and cool, and its cover page is sacred ground for the most famous, idolised and celebrated musicians, actors and models in American pop culture. Granting that privilege to a suspected terrorist, who happens to be one of the most hated men in America at the moment, is clearly one of the worst decisions Rolling Stone has ever made.

Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi doesn’t seem to understand this point. In providing his reasons for why he thinks this controversy has been overstated, the Boston native said that the only reason people are upset is because they don’t realise that the Rolling Stone magazine actually reports on serious news matters. He takes the example of the New York Times, which published the exact same picture of Tsarnaev on its front page a few weeks ago, and points out that there was no controversy there because the New York Times is so obviously a serious news publication. He wrote:

“…pretty much everyone has heard of Rolling Stone, which is where the problem lay, in this gap between the popular image of the magazine and the reality of its reporting.

If indeed we were just a celebrity/gossip mag that covered nothing but rock stars and pop-culture icons, and we decided to boost sales and dabble in hard news by way of putting a Jim Morrison-esque depiction of a mass murderer on our cover, that really would suck and we would deserve all of this criticism. But Rolling Stone has actually been in the hard news/investigative reporting business since its inception…

…So that’s your entire controversy right there – it’s OK for the Times, not OK for Rolling Stone, because many people out there understandably do not know that Rolling Stone is also a hard-news publication.”

People pause at the memorial site in Copley Square for the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon on Boylston Street April 30, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Getty Images)

Unfortunately for Taibbi, that last line is exactly the reason why the Rolling Stone cover is so unacceptable. Harsh as it may seem, the fact that the magazine does actually try to produce serious content is irrelevant.

The fact of the matter is that Rolling Stone is perceived as a celebrity magazine, covering rock stars and pop-culture icons. People just do not see the magazine as a hard-hitting news publication in the way that newspapers, or even fellow magazines like “Time” or “The Economist” are.

Murderers are put on the front pages of newspapers and serious journalistic publications like “Time” all the time. That is why those publications are not controversial. Rolling Stone doesn’t have that luxury, because the image it has built up over the decades does not allow it to deal with serious news content in the same way.

The perception is that Rolling Stone’s front cover is reserved for rock stars and supermodels. Because of that, it has to be much more careful in how it portrays people, and in this instance it has failed.

If the magazine were actually conscious of what its reputation in the public eye is, it should have known that this was always going to create serious outrage among the American public. By putting Tsarnaev on the cover, in a picture that makes him look uncannily like stars Jim Morrison and Johnny Depp on previous Stone covers, what the magazine has actually done is send the message that if you do something terrible, Rolling Stone might make you look like a rockstar for it. And as a huge publication with decades of experience, you would hope that they would have been smarter than that.

Some people are completely supporting Rolling Stone’s approach. Well-known Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple has defended the magazine, arguing that the photo doesn’t glamorise Tsarnaev, but “humanizes” him for people “who want to see him as an animal from Day One.”

With all due respect to Mr. Wemple, he has got that wrong. It is the story, not the cover picture, which humanises him. The cover picture goes beyond humanisation; it glamorises him.

Plastering the face of a murderer, alleged or otherwise, on the front of newspapers and magazines is nothing new. In Britain alone, the faces of Myra Hindley and Harold Shipman were plastered all over most media publications back when their horrific crimes dominated the front pages. But those pictures were cold and lifeless, fitting for the words that accompanied them.

Rolling Stone didn’t do that. They could have put his booking photo on there. They could have used an image of Boston to draw the attention of the readers to the topic at hand. But they didn’t. They made Tsarnaev look like a rockstar.

Obviously, glamorising Tsarnaev was not the magazine’s intention. If one actually reads Janet Reitman’s article, it is clear that what Rolling Stone was trying to do was to show how terrorism and fanaticism are not always so obvious.

The warning is that signs of terrorism aren’t always that visible, and fanatic beliefs may well be hiding within a man who looks just like everybody else in America. Not every terrorist looks like Osama bin Laden, with an AK47 strapped across his chest. The intention of the magazine was to give a reminder of how terror doesn’t always present itself with an ugly face, and that is the sentiment which the article captures beautifully.

Tsarnaev’s story is an important one. The conversation of how this tragedy happened, as unpleasant as it is, needs to be conducted, and especially to Tsarnaev’s own age group. So by all means Rolling Stone, discuss the issue in the pages of your magazine. Explain to the world how a young Chechen somehow turned from his quiet life in America and became a Jihadist. We applaud you for it.

But don’t parade an alleged murderer on the cover like he’s Mick Jagger. It simply sends the wrong message.

Gov. Patrick says content of Rolling Stone article doesn’t seem objectionable, but cover is out of taste #fox25

— Catherine Parrotta (@CParrottaFox25) July 17, 2013