Dzhohkar Tsarnaev on the cover of Rolling Stone

I wish I was making this up.

Here is a story containing the cover.

Here is a second story.

As someone who was present at the bombings, and saw some extremely grisly things... The idea of a seemingly sympathetic story to Tsarnev on the cover of a popular magazine is really, really insulting.

Wow that's gross... I think we should give the people that commit these crimes as little attention as possible. It's what he wanted when he did the deed, and they're just inviting more people to follow in his footsteps. I'm disappointed in Rolling Stone for doing this honestly.

fuck that shit

Sympathetic? So that rolling stone story wanted the boston bombers to escape and or succeed?

From what I know it is sort of a bummer how it happened. this one was the one who wanted to be a doctor, right? There's a difference between it's a pity (that they didn't escape) and it's a pity (this seemingly nice, successful young man decided to do this horrible act).

Did I miss a big development in the investigation? Why are they spotlighting him now and not months ago when he first showed up?

That's disgusting,,,

This is the same kind of thing news places do when they cover any sort of rape story. They focus on how it's such a shame that a friendly, popular rapist who had such a good future ahead of them lost it all, instead of focusing on the victims and how it's effected their lives.

Agreed. In America, blowing other people up or committing mass shootings will land you on the news for a week and your face on the cover of every publication out there. Calling him a "monster" is still glorifying the crimes.

If it was any other magazine it would be fine, not much different than having Bin Laden or Saddam on the cover. But my perspective of Rolling Stones is their cover is typically reserved for Hollywood types. Rolling Stones has a reputation for being the kinda hippy unrealistic approach to situations. Not sure if this story carries that reputation.

Looks like trolling for attention and it seems to have worked.

Rolling stone still hasn't been relevant for more than 2(3?) decades.

@epicsteve: oh was that the issue? many people have expressed sentiments that the story was fine but the cover was objectionable.

still seems silly though. I wonder if there'd be this fervor if they photoshopped prison bars in front of the picture

To be fair, they did have an article about the early days of the Iraq War that turned into an HBO mini series.

Pretty shitty in my opinion.

Just appears that Rolling Stone is trying to do the "edgy, whoa look at that!" type of thing which just feels insulting to those who had to deal with the bombing and aftermath first hand.

That is really, really weak. It only encourages other to do pretty bad things for their few minutes of vapid fame.

Why give him 5 more minutes of fame? Disgusting..................

Rolling Stone is not going to encourage people to do that anymore than national news networks do already.

Sensationalizing tragedy for the sake of profit is par for the course in the media now a days.

Two wrongs make a right?

Dzokar has fangirls that call him Jahar because it's hotter. There's an Amazing Atheist video about it. These fangirls aren't Muslims either, they're fame obsessed spoiled white kids who don't have enough life experience to understand why murder and maiming is a negative thing.

No-one is more influential than whomever is on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Yup, all of this. It's not like it's been slow with music lately either, give the cover to Jay-Z or something. If they did that and still ran the story there wouldn't be any backlash. Well, maybe there would given the stance the article takes, but it'd be much less severe. CVS has announced they're not gonna be carrying the issue. It's gonna be interesting to see how Rolling Stone reacts to that. They've always been a very liberal magazine so it's not surprising that they have that opinion on Dzokhar, but I wonder if they'll cave to the pressure or let the issue go unaltered.

Gross.

no, but the assertion that more people are going to be influenced because of Rolling Stone is, well, very silly.

I mean who cares about getting on a magazine when you can be on the nightly news?

(also we went through this same shit with Columbine, there were news stories about that shit for YEARS)

Was it the tweens whom petitioned for his release on count of him being too cute?

CVS, Stop & Shop, Roche Brothers, Walgreens and Tedeschis have already stated they won't sell it.

I dunno is it shitty to try to actually humanize the guy? They aren't trying to absolve him of anything he he did but yo were all still human beings and we sometimes often make really really bad decisions with our lives. Sometimes those decisions lead to a cascade of events that mean we can't ever turn back.

There was a Hitler movie in the late 90's which I think aired on TV that people were all up in arms about because it chose to portray him not in a starkly evil light but rather just tell his story. I'm not saying we forgive them for what they did but possibly just maybe if we can humanize them and analyze their lives we could figure out what lead them to making the choices they did.

@brodehouse:

"Hey how do we remind people we still exist"

Timothy Mcveigh's Maxim cover was much hotter.

I read a mainstream blog a few weeks ago that was very sympathetic toward the killer. Disbelief in evil is pretty common, and if one can't attribute evil actions to evil people, one has to resort to, "Oh, they're just misunderstood."

I've seen an evil streak in the best of people. I think there's a fine line between analyzing a monster and validating them, and a lot of people give them more dignity than they deserve by examining them with compassion untempered by justice.

I just can't believe they'd do this.

People outraged by this have no grasp on the magazine's history. They always skirted on the edge like this, especially at times like this, or when they had Manson on the cover.

It isn't celebrating the murderer, it is bringing the real problem to the forefront, which is how a normal boy became a suicidal monster.

Its a beg for attention and sales. Just like all magazines try and do now

Don't forget the Stanley McChrystal article that, you know, toppled a General in the United States Army.

Or the Matt Taibbi article that further shed light on the shady dealings of Goldman Sachs and birthed the infamous description of "A great Vampire Squid wrapped around the face of humanity."

They still make waves every so often, and they tend to be sizeable waves. They're just not very frequent.

And a big interview with General McChrystal that lead to his early retirement for saying dumb things on record, I guess that counts?

People still read magazines?

Yep. I mean, in my opinion this man deserves to be on the cover of that magazine (one of many who should be):

@bestusernameever: @mariachimacabre: @epicsteve: I'll give them credit for a couple of decent articles over the last 25 years (I think Taibbi is pretty good when I read his stuff printed elsewhere) but I think the writers who broke these stories could have done just as well with these stories in a different kind of magazine.

I know it's part of their tradition to have some amount of the Hunter Thompson kind of content, but today it makes as much sense for a music magazine to run these kinds of articles as it does for Cat Fancy to.

What's the problem?

Given the weird following of adorers he has developed online, the picture they chose seems very much an attempt at baiting controversy and attention. I get that the story is an examination of how his life took the turns it did, but that picture seems to be the sticking point here.

It's working, I haven't cared about Rolling Stone in... I can't remember how long

That edition was in my mailbox (stupid free subscription from Ticketmaster). At a quick glance, the 10 page article seems to focus on his messed up life that led up to the bombings. I haven't decided if I want to read it or not. It really depends if I get bored of drawing dicks on the cover.

Has anyone actually been found guilty regarding the Boston Bombings? Has a verdict been reached in an independent court of law? Has evidence been produced?

If not, shut the fuck up. As per normal many of those that claim not to like conspiracy theories are partaking of one right now in this thread. Ironically by doing so they're the ones being sensationalistic.

Always baffles me when gamers as a demographic like to see themselves above the mob mentality of mainstream media, and yet deep down they're just as culpable of the same idiocy.

I never claimed that it was just Rolling Stone that encourages this kind of behavior. Assuming I did is, well, very silly. The whole system upon which modern media is built trivializes crimes and it even actually awards it by showcasing it to the masses as if it was something desirable. If your answer is "well, it's not a big deal, there are other places you can appear if you put a bomb in marathon", then I really don't need to continue this discussion. The bigger evil does not excuse the smaller one.

@gaminghooligan said:

@deegee said:

This is the same kind of thing news places do when they cover any sort of rape story. They focus on how it's such a shame that a friendly, popular rapist who had such a good future ahead of them lost it all, instead of focusing on the victims and how it's effected their lives.

Yep. I mean, in my opinion this man deserves to be on the cover of that magazine (one of many who should be):

Absolutely agree, but that doesn't drum up controversy, something that rolling stones loves because it's free advertising.

Right there with you, RS is trying to be a big reputable news maker that has clearly not earned any of it, they have mostly gossip bullcrap with maybe one decent article spread thin. Sad thing is, that's completely common for modern, corporate owned journalism.

Mayor Menino published a great letter =)

I don't understand why the fuck pepole are complaining, the TIMES had the exact same cover photo a few weeks ago and nobody said anything

So, which one gives more attention to this guy: the Rolling Stone cover or the people being angry about the cover?

I didn't know about this article or about the cover but thanks to the angry mob, now I do. Rolling Stone is probably happy about the free advertisement.

It's all business, Rolling stones knew what they were doing.