I simply cannot resist the urge to comment on this, if for no other reason than it gives me the opportunity to use the phrase "TrollingStone magazine." Which I will do now.
Music and culture journalism bastion TrollingStone magazine actually managed to something a little bit punk rock this week, possibly on purpose. Their new cover features a dreamy image of accused Boston bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnayev, using a photo that could just as easily have been snapped at an after-hours dubstep show in Williamsburg. Not that I'd know. The offending image:
Let's leave aside the fact that "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" was a tired phrase 6 years ago, that Magna Carta will someday be viewed as a work of genius (whether we like it or not), and that THE ARCTIC ICE MELT GETS THE SAME AMOUNT OF SPACE AS GUY CLARK JR. Put that all out of your mind for the moment, so we can get back to literally judging this book by its cover.
Just look at him. All smug and self-assured. He really does look like a douchebag from an unadvertised underground bar you'll never be cool enough to get into. How dare RollingStone elevate him like that. Wait, hold on a second. Okay, they do go on to call him "The Bomber," which could be a cool DJ name, but then they say "How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster." Well, that's not very flattering. But still, putting an accused murderer on the cover of one of our most cherished (for some reason) national magazines is not something we would ever tolerate.
That's a lot of Stalins.
Oh, and how appropriate that LIFE put Stalin on the cover, since life is something for which he had no regard. So it's not just Hitler. And it's not just Time. Could there be more examples?
And of course:
It's almost as if these magazines were somehow trying to grab the attention of their readers with provocative images and text in order to get them to purchase and read stories about current events. But does it work? Somehow Time and Newsweek largely (mostly) survived the massive boycotts that surely came as a result of these covers shown here (wait, there were none), and RollingStone will survive its latest attempts to trick people into reading the news. It's unfortunate and unavoidable when journalists offend their readers. Well, mainly its unavoidable.
If I were an editor at RollingStone (side note: I'm available!) I wouldn't lose much sleep over CVS or Walgreens or Wal-Mart or anyone else refusing to carry this issue. I'd thank my lucky stars for the free press and count the Internet traffic that comes rolling in, so to speak. Maybe that's the point. Or maybe it's just punk.
I think it's apples to avocados to compare the covers of Rolling Stone to those other "news" magazines. Traditionally Rolling Stone reserves its cover for "rock stars" and other people we, in theory, revere. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of the villains in these choices had verdicts already rendered upon them, certainly time had passed between the crime(s) in question and their deification on the front of a magazine. It's been 3 months since the Boston Bombing. McVeigh on the cover of Rolling Stone in July of 1995? Equally tasteless and cruel.
ReplyDeleteIf it's apples you're after, then how about the OJ covers? Published in the moment, covering a double-homicide with a dramatic police chase and gruesome details that transfixed the nation. Seems pretty much the same to me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this same photo was previously featured prominently, above the fold, front page, of the New York Times. No one raised a stink. Why not? The implication is that RollingStone is not a serious player when it comes to journalism (Gen. McChrystal might disagree), and it should stick to being Tiger Beat for adults. I think it was a bold move for the editors to play against that type and pull us into a thoughtful and important story. Any time someone wants to get serious, I say let 'em. Otherwise we'd never have had the special episode of Family Ties where Alex talks about his chemical dependency. (It's on YouTube, and it's great)
The apples I'm talking about are the natures of each publication, really. While you're right, RS has a rep for its journalism, it's also worked really hard to make its cover a sort of art installation that has not traditionally reflected those harder hitting news stories. Now, it probably wouldn't raise as much of a stink if Tsarnayev was on the cover of Playboy but the incongruity of the way that publication has used it's cover in relation to its journalistic content in the past would make it a similarly unnecessary move.
ReplyDeleteThe sort of interesting/sad/weird thing is that by making the cover a sensation like this they've basically negated the need for the article to be any good. People are now going to not read it because they're angry about the cover or read it because they're angry that other people are angry about the cover or read it because they'd never heard that RS did stuff outside of music before or whatever but the discussion isn't going to be about the article. It might be one of the greatest pieces of journalism on this subject but nobody's going to look at it like that now.
What about the RS cover with Charles Manson? Polanski? And I hate to be "that guy," but he has not been convicted yet. AND the fact that people won't read the article just shows what's really wrong here...
ReplyDeleteYep, definitely should have included those covers. If I had an editor, s/he probably would have caught that.
ReplyDelete...General McChrystal didn't make the cover, though. And I don't think we delegitimize the journalism in RS by pointing out that this isn't how *they* usually use *their* covers: that is, in a different way entirely from the way Time/Life/NYT do. (As for OJ - he would have been an RS cover candidate *before* chase/trial/gruesome, post-murder; he was a double celebrity. If McVeigh didn't, or - name another our recent mentally unstable mass killers, no shortage - then it's legitimate to point out the 'shift in policy.' I think if RS wants to encompass serious journalism and grownup Tiger Beat, they shouldn't be surprised if someone thinks they've messed up that two-fer on occasion, especially when the make the one look strangely like the other. It does look rather as though they were intentionally blurring that line - are were other pictures of our young bomber available.
ReplyDeleteKizz's comment raises an interesting point about how the article's merit is now lust in the shuffle. And... anyone can boycott whatever they like, or course, for reasons excellent or idiotic. Just as RS can make these choices, and then see how it goes. I think if you're going to defend the one, you have to put up with the other as well.