Tsarnaev: Did Rolling Stone glamorize him?

“He’s hot. He’s sexy. He’s an accused terrorist,” said Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon.com. Rolling Stone has put alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover of its newest issue, with a photograph seemingly calculated to “whip up a little moral outrage.” The photo shows the 20-year-old with artfully tousled hair and a sly half-smile, looking less like a cold-blooded murderer than “late-era Kurt Cobain.” Boston erupted in outrage at the cover, which accompanied a long article detailing Tsarnaev’s transformation from a “chill,” pot-smoking wrestler everyone liked into an embittered Islamic terrorist. A furious Mayor Tom Menino said the cover “rewards a terrorist with celebrity treatment,” while CVS said it wouldn’t stock Rolling Stone in Beantown stores. That fury is completely justified, said Scott Kearnan in BostonGlobe.com. Given that Tsarnaev is accused of cold-bloodedly killing and maiming scores of people, making him look like just another glamorous teen idol is “tacky and tasteless.”

“Magazine covers are not endorsements,” said The New York Times in an editorial. Time put a “less than demonic” image of Osama bin Laden on its cover a month after 9/11, while Rolling Stone featured a photo of murderous cult leader Charles Manson on its cover 40 years ago. The photo the magazine used of Dzhokhar had previously appeared in dozens of publications and websites “without an outcry.” It was undoubtedly chosen because it perfectly captures the theme of the magazine’s “truly illuminating profile,” said Alec MacGillis in NewRepublic.com. The story examines how this “tousle-haired golden boy” could become, in the words of Rolling Stone’s cover line, a “monster.” Boston is a tribal town, but its outrage seems like “a wee bit of an overreaction.”

Try telling that to Bostonians, said Erik Wemple in WashingtonPost.com. Sgt. Sean Murphy of the Massachusetts State Police was so angry at the magazine’s cover that he leaked pictures from the night of Tsarnaev’s arrest, showing the bloodied suspect climbing out of his hiding place with a sniper’s red laser beam on his forehead. “This is the real Boston bomber,” said Murphy, “not someone fluffed and buffed for the cover of Rolling Stone.” But that misses the point of the article, which is that evil people often don’t look evil. And if Murphy is really concerned about glamorizing the suspect, why release photos of his capture—and generate millions of online page views? For a terrorist, “all publicity is good publicity.”

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