-Chris Meyer
The recent mass hysteria over the current Rolling Stone magazine cover, which features an image of accused Boston Bombing terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a clear-cut example of how quickly we, as Americans, are quick to judge without ever fully looking into a story. The reporting, which was done by Janet Reitman, looks into the behind the scenes of who Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, known to his friends as “Jahar,” was and to what may have led this seemingly quiet, unassuming, young man to commit such atrocities. It pretty much points out a different face of terrorism: one that might be living right next door to you.
But that is not what the issue is here, because 95% of the people chiming in about this story are concerned with one thing: an image. They are concerned with the image of this 19 year old young man, really a kid still, appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The same exact image appeared on the cover of The New York Times on May 5th – as you can see above (as Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi also points out in his article). They are not concerned with the backstory of the why and how this horrific act could have ever taken place. They are concerned with a mere image.
Is this image any more offensive?
The problem is people’s perception. And, unfortunately, what you perceive is not always the truth, which is exactly why you have to look a little deeper into things before you make a baseless accusation.
The fact is that what happened on April 15th, 2013 during the Boston Marathon is an event that will go down in history as tragic, unforgettable, and just plain wrong. The loss of innocent life to prove a point is senseless, and it most certainly resonates in our hearts and minds the most when it happens in our own backyard.
But the concern with this article, or rather the image that appears on the cover, is that Rolling Stone, which happens to have a great reputation and history for providing excellent news and investigative reporting, gives Tsarnaev a sex appeal – which is unjustly bias due to most people’s surface understanding about Rolling Stone. Matt Taibbi, world renown investigative journalist for the magazine, points out “Rolling Stone has actually been in the hard news/investigative reporting business since its inception, from Hunter S. Thompson to Carl Bernstein to Bill Greider back in the day to Tim Dickinson, Michael Hastings, Mark Boal, Janet Reitman and myself in recent years.”
Well, he is a good looking kid; he doesn’t have some silly mustache like Adolf Hitler, nor does he have a swastika tattooed on his forehead like Charles Manson. He is simply a good looking kid that did a terrible, terrible deed. What people are worried about with regards to this article is mere surface, not the meat and potatoes of it all – because you can be sure that they haven’t even taken the time to read one page of what Reitman has written.
The New York Times points out, in a piece by The Editorial Board, that:
Time magazine, for example, had quite a few covers featuring Adolf Hitler during the war years. Less than a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Time featured a less-than-demonic photo of Osama bin Laden. Charles Manson appeared on Rolling Stone’s cover 40-some years ago for a jailhouse interview that was as chilling as it was revealing. We could go on.
So, the question that begs to be asked is….what is the real issue here? Are we really going to give such hype to an image, when we haven’t even read a word of what has been written? Living in the age that we do, with information literally a google click away, why are we so quick to judge without taking the time to, at the very least, browse through a few articles to get a grasp of an issue? Or in this case, to just read ONE article.
No one is saying that Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan (who eventually died in a shootout days later), is not guilty of these actions; he certainly admitted to them. Yet he is still entitled to a trial, being an American citizen and all, and to have his day in court. What the main concern is, with regards to this particular article and the overall hype given to the cover of Rolling Stone, is the increasing sensitivity of a nation that once had the moral and mental wherewithal to deal with situations head on and not just shun something that it didn’t like. Everywhere you look, every conversation you have, we have to “protect” people’s feelings; we can’t let our children see the realities that you have to deal with in everyday life; we can’t say this or that because someone or some group may get offended; we can’t teach this book in school because it says a particular word; and the list goes on and on.
This is HISTORY! It is not going to simply disappear and vanish. So you might as well know the story, and get the information so you can educate yourself. It’s no wonder America is lagging behind statistically in every major category when compared to other first-world nations. We are afraid to truly teach; we are afraid to stand up; we are afraid to live; and we are most definitely afraid of the TRUTH….and it shows.
With CVS taking the current issue of Rolling Stone off its shelves, it takes away the choice of Americans to become educated on a topic that is quite controversial. Just because you buy something, or look into a topic, or dare to speak about it, doesn’t mean that you don’t sympathize with the victims; it just means you have the yearning to learn about it, and to delve into the complexities of said issue. It also means that executives at CVS didn’t take 10 minutes to read the article.
The editors of Rolling Stone even give a lead-in to the story, so people understand why they chose to move forward with it:
Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families. 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 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. –THE EDITORS
Does this not make complete sense? The spread is extremely in-depth and gives a long hard look into how a kid that is described the following ways by those closest to him:
Natural athlete
Quiet
Intelligent
Friendly
Good wrestler
National Honors Society student
Friends with kids from all races and walks of life
Always there for his friends if they needed something
Never picked on anybody
Polite
Never violent
And how he came from a family that, over time, developed issues of their own and, for all intents and purposes, disbanded. It goes into how his brother became a devout Muslim, and an extreme hard-liner; which Johar appeared to have feared, to an extent. But the story also tells of how Johar had great friends with families that cared for him and supported him, and about how those people can’t believe that this person they know and cared for could commit such a heinous act.
The real question is: Why would a seemingly normal AMERICAN kid do this? What was his motivation? Why would he disrupt his life, that was going down a natural, normal path, to commit such a heinous crime? NOT how could Rolling Stone put the picture of this person on their cover.
The article written by Janet Reitman is an excellent job of journalism at its best. Anybody who has any inkling of interest in this topic should read it, because it will be the most enlightening work on the subject that has been written thus far.
Here is a link to Janet Reitman’s article.
Here is a link to the Rolling’s Stones Explanation of the Article.
*The article only reflects the opinion of the author, not Live For Live Music.