Boston Bomber on Rolling Stones cover

[sunrise]

I have just seen this story on the BBC News website and am left wondering "why?"

Rolling Stone's Boston bomb suspect cover sparks outrage

A Rolling Stone magazine cover featuring Boston bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has caused outrage online.

Thousands of people posted on social media networks calling it "tasteless" and "disgusting".

Tsarnaev, 19, who pleaded not guilty to all charges in connection to the bombings in April, is profiled in the forthcoming issue.

The image, which Tsarnaev posted online himself, has also featured on the front page of the New York Times.

"What a disgrace, trying to make [Tsarnaev] look like a rock star. Horrible," Steve Simon posted on Rolling Stone's Facebook page, where more than 5,400 people have commented in the 12 hours since the cover was revealed online.

On Twitter people said the picture of Tsarnaev looked similar to an old cover featuring singer Jim Morrison of The Doors.

I really fail to understand what Rolling Stone are trying to do here, it has nothing to do with music and a lot of bands are already calling it a stupid mistake, I can only imagine what the bands on the front cover make of this.

I would be interested in reading the article if only to see what the story is about but I very much doubt it will make me think otherwise about it being on there.

 

[CaptainObvious]

This is America. We condemn a man for shooting a black kid in self defense and call it a race problem and some call it a hate crime, but we try and excuse and make a Muslim who killed many people some kind of victim. If you look at the bottom of the cover it asks about his family and what fault they play in what happened, as if he has no culpability for what he did. We have black people attacking white people now and it is barely reported. If we had people attacking Muslims randomly in the streets Barack Obama and others would be talking about how wrong it is and how Islam is a religion of peace, but they are silent on the things riots and attacks going on now. It makes no sense to me.

 

[Hilander]

I think Rolling Stone used very poor judgement in putting his picture on the front cover. Fine if you want to do a story on him but the man is a mass murderer not a rock star.

 

[Wade8813]

Rolling Stone often has legit articles that are completely unrelated to music. However, putting him on the cover does seem like a really poor decision.

 

[Major]

It seems like our culture is obsessed with turning criminal suspects into celebrities. Just look at Jodi Arias. Had she been found innocent of murdering her ex-boyfriend she probably would have become a millionaire just from book and movie deals, all thanks to the media's obsession with her during her trial. People eat that shit up, too. The media just does whatever gets them ratings.

 

[Merc]

The one thing I find truly hilarious is how nearly every single person who has made an attempt at insulting Rolling Stone has made mention at least twice of how nobody reads it and how it's not relevant. You could smack these people in the face with a giant slab of truth and they'd still not get it.

It's publicity.

They put this kid on the cover because they KNOW this is how people will react. I'm also somewhat surprised at how outraged people are since Americans have become truly sick with their infatuation with killers this past decade or so. We pour over hours of news broadcasts, hours of shitty pundit pandering and pages upon pages of blog posts, newspaper articles and websites just to hear more and more. Favorite foods? That one time they shot a friend with a super soaker in second grade? OMG HE HAD AN XBOX?

TONIGHT AT ELEVEN, FIND OUT WHY THE KILLER PREFERRED CREAM CHEESE FROSTING TO REGULAR SUGAR FROSTING AND WHY CREAM CHEESE FROSTING IS FOR PUSSIES.

Rolling Stone is going to get some heat, they already are. But they're instantly popular again. Anyone with half a brain knows that bad publicity is better than none at all and as I was saying earlier, it's fits America's need to feed on this sort of info.

 

[CaptainObvious]

I'm not so sure about that. I don't think this instantly makes them popular again. Sure it drums up some publicity for a magazine that has become irrelevant but that doesn't mean the magazine is saved. Bad publicity isn't necessarily better than none at all. It can be, but it's not automatically. We'll see if Rolling Stone becomes relevant again, maybe they will, maybe they won't, but I don't think at this point we can say it was a good move.

 

[Doc]

I'm not so sure about that. I don't think this instantly makes them popular again.

Any publicity is good publicity. This decision, while a poor one, is going to boost their sales in the short term. In the next few issues you might see some of their better material so they can try to retain subscribers. Print is a dying form and Rolling Stone is trying to stay relevant.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Any publicity is good publicity. This decision, while a poor one, is going to boost their sales in the short term. In the next few issues you might see some of their better material so they can try to retain subscribers. Print is a dying form and Rolling Stone is trying to stay relevant.

I think bad publicity CAN be good, but it's not conclusive in my opinion. I think of Donald Trump. He's constant "Obama was born in Kenya" statements only hurt him and the ratings of his shows. Granted his Apprentice shows were doing rather poorly anyway, but I don't think the publicity he got for his claims helped.