Rolling Stone has made a splash online today by revealing its controversial new cover with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev. It’s kept the magazine’s name in the Twitter trending topics all day and on the major news sites. The magazine has now posted the full story online and the editors have responded to the controversy.
The cover was unveiled on Tuesday, as Rolling Stone released a five-point sampler from the main story, written by editor Janet Reitman. It created instant controversy, since some saw it as glorifying Tsarnaev.
Before the full piece, titled “Jahar’s World,” the editors added a brief statement explaining why they did the story and put him on the cover.
“Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families,” the statement beings. The editors continued:
“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.”
Meanwhile, Boston.com is reporting that CVS, which has a major presence in the Boston area, and the Tedeschi’s supermarket chain both announced on Facebook that they will refuse to sell the magazine. TMZ notes that Roche Bros., another supermarket chain, is also not going to sell the magazine.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino also issued a statement, writing, “To respond to you in anger is to feed into your obvious marketing strategy... The survivors of the Boston attacks deserve Rolling Stone cover stories, though I no longer feel that Rolling Stone deserves them.”
image: Rolling Stone