So, WTF Rolling Stone? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a cover?

I get that RS pretends to be a magazine that still handles SERIOUS issues as it sees fit, when it's not sucking on popular music's teat. But this feels so wrong to me. You're essentially giving this loser the fame and spotlight he wanted with this.

http://m.rollingstone.com/?redirurl=/culture/news/five-revelations-from-rolling-stones-boston-bomber-cover-story-20130716

 

I'm not sure I get the outrage. If you're telling his story, how else would you do it?

 

I noticed cover at distance in airport rack and thought is was a story about Bob Dylan

 

I'm not sure it's the fact that he's on the cover per se, but that he's posed in such a "sympathetic" way. If you didn't know better, you might think it was a story about some hot new singer-songwriter.



Plus, the Rolling Stone cover is iconic. Getting on it is something everyone in music/popular culture used to aspire to. There's a freakin' song about it, for Christ's sake.

 

I doubt (but could be wrong) they took that picture at the Ft. Devens federal correctional facility. So I'm guessing it's a family picture they got hold of.

 

I'm curious about whether it's a one-off cover, or whether RS is going to try to re-brand itself over time as a news magazine that includes pop culture rather than a pop culture magazine that includes news. I'm not even sure who their audience is now. Pop music doesn't have the cultural penetration it did just a few years ago. At the same time, teens and twentysomethings are going to tire of five-star Mick Jagger and John Fogerty solo album reviews at some point. Political magazine to engage young lefties? That seems like a sweet spot they can really aim for and succeed.

 

Why are they spelling his name "Jahar" instead of Dzhokhar? Is that common? I don't think I've seen Jahar anywhere else....I remember some Usama/Osama stuff with bin Laden but that came up fairly often.

 

It's a curious cover choice... Is Matt Taibbi arguing that he's a great American?

 

I think it's a piece by Taibbi about how Tsaernaev's bank is the real culprit here. Lot of posts so far about how, once you get past him calling the Cambridge Corner Credit Union a "cocksucking, shit-eating, piss-gobbling piece of shit motherfucker," you "can't argue with his logic!!!ELEVENTY111"

 

I did not read the story but cover evokes memories of the radical 60's when promising
students also blew up buildings to protest Viet Nam.

In some circles those students were admired perhaps because they were American and also
because the war was not popular.